San Francisco -- February 28, a grand jury indicted Police Chief Earl Sanders, the assistant Police Chief, and five other top officials on charges of conspiring to obstruct the investigation into an off-duty assault. The grand jury also indicted the assistant chief's son and two other cops on felony assault charges. The assault charges stemmed from a fight on November 20 where the three off duty cops beat up two people outside a bar over a bag of steak fajitas. Prior to the Grand Jury indictment the SFPD had pursued the assault case with blatant disregard for justice, obstructing the investigation and going so far as to transfer the Lieutenant who was leading the investigation, inspiring his reaction "You can read between the lines."
San Francisco mayor Willie Brown immediately stepped after the indictment stating "I'm the commander in 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. It's a matter of public safety." This is a clear demonstration of why police brutality and corruption will never be stopped through the legal system. It is not a matter of just a few rogue cops or a few corrupt command staff, the problem runs through the system right to the top. When rare indictments or convictions are achieved, at best a low level fall persyn is found taking the rap while the system continues with business (of targeting oppressed nations) as usual.
MIM does see this indictment is a victory for those fighting police brutality and corruption. It will inevitably lead to far greater publicity of this case as well as others. It will force people who ordinarily would not hear about systematic police brutality to think about the system and how it works. And MIM will use this opportunity to point out that the police in this country are an occupying army targeting the oppressed nations within u.s. borders. In San Francisco this target is primarily Black and Latino youth. (For several articles detailing recent cases of brutality see http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/policebrutality)
If Sanders is forced to step down, two of the three other deputy chief's who could replace him represent groups traditionally marginalized from the force. Heather Fong, a Chinese womyn and Mindy Pengel, a lesbian, are being championed as examples of the diversity of the SFPD. But Earl Sanders, a Black man, currently heads up a police force that has a history of brutalizing and killing unarmed Blacks in the city. Recent cases under his command include the MLK day brutalizing of four Black youth, two girls and two boys all under the age of 14, who were doing nothing more than sitting in a car listening to music.
MIM does not support getting more members of oppressed communities into leading positions on the police force. This will just put a prettier face on the fundamentally oppressive system. Instead we work to publicize the oppressive nature of the police force while we fight to dismantle the system that is built on the oppression of many nations by a few.
Notes: San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2003.