Cops and protesters

EVEN THE HARSHEST critics of the San Francisco Police Department should agree that overall police behavior during the past week of almost nonstop protests was relatively restrained. There were no police riots of the type we've seen before, no wholesale head-busting, no tear gas or rubber bullets. Still, as our reporters note in dispatches starting on page 16, there were a number of truly disturbing incidents – and they need to be quickly and aggressively investigated and resolved.

Some of the incidents will result in grievances brought to the city's Office of Citizen Complaints. But not everyone who gets abused by the cops complains – and, thanks to a terrible state law known as the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, the details of most OCC investigations remain confidential. So the Police Commission should hold public hearings on the police response to the protests – and force police brass to discuss the incidents and their tactics in the open. The commission should also have a serious discussion about overall crowd-control policies, especially the tactic of surrounding groups of demonstrators and not allowing anyone out of the cordon – a dangerous practice that catches innocent bystanders in a frightening situation. And the cops clearly need to be reminded of and retrained in the rules protecting reporters from getting arrested while covering the news (see page 12).

The Police Commission doesn't have much credibility right now, and pretending these incidents didn't happen, or weren't important enough for public attention, will only further erode public confidence in local law enforcement.