Adachi Releases New Video, Cites Possible Police Theft

Update May 28: Reports on this story from The Informant and the Chronicle, filling in some of the details.

Update 3 p.m., May 27 The new Adachi video is now up on the Public Defender's YouTube site. Here's the description of it from the PD's office:

San Francisco Police report says "Inastrilla raised his right hand to his mouth and spit (E1) off-white rock wrapped in plastic, suspected base rock cocaine, into his palm. Inastrilla handed the rock to Hernandez and ordered. 'Give this to him.' Hernandez walked slightly west and told Officer Guerrero, 'Follow me.'"

In the video, Guerrero crosses the crosswalk (0:14) , then talks to Inastrilla (0:20). Inastrilla has his right hand on his cellphone and left hand in his pocket. He does not hand anything to Hernandez.

This case was dismissed after the Assistant District Attorney was shown the video and Guerrero said he could not find the drugs that were supposed to be evidence

In addition, Adachi released two affidavits from a husband and wife stating that police, during a search, took items from their house never booked into evidence. The items include a camera, two iPods and a cell phone. This is a similar charge to one made by the Public Defender last week, when he released security video he says shows police officers from Mission Station removing two bags from a residence, which were never booked into evidence.

Earlier post
San Francisco police probably look forward to the release of a new Jeff Adachi video like the parents of gore-minded teenage boys used to anticipate the latest opus in the Jason series: with fear, loathing, and a renewed sense of "when's it gonna end?"

This morning Adachi, at an impromptu press conference, announced his Public Defender's Office would be premiering new footage at 1 p.m.(Update 1:10 p.m.: The videos have not yet been posted on the PD's site.) Adachi said 26 cases related to newly surfaced video of arrests made by Mission Station police are being dismissed by the D.A. This afternoon, the police department released a confirmation of the latest group of dropped cases.

Last week, Adachi released a video he said shows police entering a hotel carrying no bags. The officers were then shown leaving carrying a laptop case and another bag, neither of which officers listed as evidence, Adachi said. The case was dropped after one of the officers failed to show up in court.

Adachi said today he's still received no explanation as to what happened to the bags.

This latest release is part of an ongoing scandal involving surveillance video from hotels and apartment buildings showing what purportedly are illegal police procedures during arrests. Much of the conduct at issue concerns improper use of warrants and other actions that police are legally required to take, such as showing their badges.

Here's the audio of today's Adachi presser, at which he said the new videos will reveal both testimony from witnesses who have been victims of theft by police as well as more arrests contradicting what officers said in police reports.

(Update 3:16 p.m. What Adachi released were a new video allegedly showing police misconduct plus affidavits from a husband and wife stating that police, during a search, took items from their house never booked into evidence. The items included a camera, two iPods and a cell phone.)

Jeff Adachi press conference

Highlights and quotes:

• Adachi said he's asking for members of the public to come forward with other incidents of property they think has been stolen by police or of improper arrests.
• He said his office is looking into 6900 cases in the past five years associated with the Mission police and with the squad of officers from the Southern Station who earlier in the year were put on restricted duty due to discrepancies between events depicted in hotel security videos and what they wrote on official reports. Well over a hundred cases total related to the two groups of officers have now been dropped, Adachi said.
• Adachi said his office has met with the FBI, which is conducting an investigation, twice.