By Camille T. Taiara

Without informing the San Francisco school board, Mayor Willie Brown held a private meeting in his office to try to convince students involved in the Oct. 11 fracas at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School in the Bayview District not to sue the city.

On Nov. 25, Brown hosted a meeting between San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, San Francisco Police Department chief Earl Sanders, representatives of the African American Community Relations Board, and four students facing charges in connection with the brawl and their parents in an attempt to broker a deal behind closed doors: the city would reportedly decline to pursue any charges against the students as long as the youths and their families dropped the police brutality grievances they filed with the Office of Citizen Complaints and agreed not to sue.

Significantly, none of the students' attorneys was informed of the meeting. At least one of the parents signed a memorandum of understanding that day. The document is not legally binding, but could serve as a model for a settlement approved through the City Attorney's Office.

At stake, should the deal go through, are not only the rights of a handful of students to seek recompense but also those of other juveniles who might find themselves on the wrong end of a police baton during any future altercation at a San Francisco school.

"It's completely unethical to meet with young people without their attorneys and to use as leverage criminal charges that were bogus in the first place," says Shannan Wilbur, executive director of Legal Services for Children, which has been working with one of the students. Wilbur suspects the city is using threats of inflated charges as a scare tactic to dissuade the students and their parents from pursing action against them.

The four students face criminal charges. None had any history of run-ins with the law prior to the incident. A source told the Bay Guardian that under normal circumstances, the youths would likely have been assigned to a diversion program rather than face trial.

Seventy-five officers – including police and Sheriff's Department personnel, some in riot gear – rushed to Thurgood Marshall the day of the fight, which involved dozens of mostly African American and Asian American youths. At a meeting five days later, several students reported that police beat them with batons. One even claimed he saw an officer pull his gun. By comparison, only three officers responded to a brawl involving 50 Asian American and white students – some of whom were armed with knives and baseball bats – at Lincoln High School in the Sunset District Sept. 30 (see "Riot or Racism?" 10/23/02).

Advocates worry any backroom dealing will threaten the efficacy of a task force, made up of school district representatives and community members, charged with investigating the incident and making recommendations for how schools and the police should respond to similar episodes in the future. The task force is set to release its initial report Dec. 16.

"The district wasn't involved in brokering a deal for itself," claims spokesperson Lorna Ho, who says Ackerman simply "acted as a facilitator" on the students' behalf. Ho admits the SFUSD's legal team drew up the draft agreement but says it did so at the request of some of the parents, who were given "clear, verbal instructions they should seek legal advice" before agreeing to its terms. She also says Ackerman instructed district lawyers to remove any wording from the document that would insulate the SFUSD from potential lawsuits by the students or their families.

But school board commissioner Mark Sanchez was not satisfied. Sanchez, who says neither the superintendent nor the mayor had informed him of their actions, told the Bay Guardian he and commissioner Eric Mar intend to discuss the issue at the closed-door session prior to the school board's next meeting.

As for the mayor's role, press secretary P.J. Johnston denied having any knowledge of the meeting. (Brown, he said, is in Cuba and unavailable for comment.)

For her part, Wilbur would like the District Attorney's Office to release a statement saying it will not pursue any charges against the students, and she hopes the city attorney revokes any agreement coming out of the private rendezvous.

"What we try to convey to our young people is that they should be held personally accountable for their behavior," she says. "If we as adults aren't held accountable for ours, they won't take us seriously. And they shouldn't."

E-mail Camille T. Taiara at camille@sfbg.com.