On November 20, three off-duty cops--Alex Fagan Jr., David Lee, and Matthew Tonsing--were returning from a banquet celebrating the promotion of Alex Fagan Sr. to assistant chief of police. They accosted Jade Santoro and Alex Snyder in the middle-class Pacific Heights area of San Francisco. Not knowing it was cops who were brutalizing them, Snyder called 911 on his cell phone and told the dispatcher they had been beaten up by three men. "I need some cops fast," he said, "I just got out of work, and they just started fighting us, over nothing."

When the police arrived, Santoro and Snyder were bleeding and the assailants gone. The three cops who are now defendants later returned to the scene, but investigating police allowed them to leave without questioning them or securing any evidence. The indictment charges that top ranking cops subsequently thwarted any investigation from within the police force and district attorney’s office.

The indictments have fueled infighting among capitalist politicians. The day after the indictments, an indignant mayor Willie Brown said at a news conference, "I’m the commander and chief of this goddamn place, and there is no way the command staff of my Police Department is going to step down at this time." Having indicted cop officials remain in their jobs, however, backfired on the police department. Two days later the cops all did step aside.

Allies of the mayor, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, criticized District Attorney Terrance Hallinan for the grand jury indictment, suggesting he is only trying to promote his own career.

The head of the Police Officers’ Association defended the cops. "We are potentially targeted by terrorists. Do we have time for this?" he argued.

Some big-business commentators expressed "shock" that top police officials would be accused of conspiring to obstruct the investigation.

Similar police scandals have erupted in other cities where the cops’ normal conduct of brutality has been exposed. In nearby Oakland, a gang of four cops, known as the Riders, are on trial for having planted evidence and falsely arrested and brutalized hundreds of people in Black neighborhoods. The Oakland city government recently settled a lawsuit filed by 119 plaintiffs against the police for $10.9 million. The city of Los Angeles has paid out $40 million in connection with crimes committed by police in the Ramparts division; more than 100 convictions have been overturned there.

Prior to the November 20 street brawl, rookie police officer Alex Fagan Jr. has, according to his official record, been involved in at least 16 other violent attacks in just 13 months. One man, who reported Fagan threatened to shoot his "Black brains all over the sidewalk," was hospitalized with broken ribs and a punctured lung. Another was beaten in his own home. Another was hogtied with his knees bent behind him--a police practice permitted in San Francisco but barred in other cities because of its links to suffocation.

Fagan, considered a "good cop" by the police department, was instructed to take "anger management" classes.

The Office of Citizens’ Complaints in San Francisco, which investigates charges of cop brutality, reported that the police department delayed nearly 100 cases so long they have to be dropped because the statute of limitations has expired.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the city police department "has treated serious officer misconduct leniently and promoted cops with troubling records to top posts." One of the indicted cops, police captain Greg Corrales, accumulated 80 misconduct complaints by citizens and has been the defendant in 18 lawsuits.

Bernie Senter is a garment worker in San Francisco.  
 
 
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