By Steven T. Jones

Just as community frustrations with secrecy and abusive tactics in the San Francisco Police Department have reached a boiling point (see "Cops vs. Community," 5/12/04), both the Police Commission and District Attorney's Office have taken some baby steps toward improving police accountability.

District Attorney Kamala Harris has created a Public Integrity Unit to investigate crimes by police officers and other public officials. Harris told the Bay Guardian she purposefully brought in two outsiders "who are not encumbered by existing relationships" to staff the unit: former assistant U.S. attorney Davina Pujari and former deputy city attorney Marc Katz.

Although Harris has recently been the subject of intense and public criticism by members of the San Francisco Police Officer's Association over her decision not to seek the death penalty for an accused cop killer, she was reluctant to say anything bad about the department during an interview with us, instead casting the creation of this unit as the fulfillment of a promise she made during the fall campaign.

"I'm not waging a war on the Police Department, but I'm going to do my job," Harris said, adding, "It's a big problem when a community of people doesn't trust the integrity of the system."

The unit will operate within the Special Operations division, which is headed by veteran San Francisco prosecutor David Pfeifer and staffed with 12 full-time investigators.

Harris said the Public Integrity Unit, which began operations earlier this month, already has active investigations underway, although she would not discuss details. She said she hopes this new focus will restore people's confidence in public institutions like the police: "It's about critically focusing on it as an issue and putting resources into it."

"We need to be able to specialize and focus better, and this will allow us to do that," Pfeifer told us, noting that corruption and abuse cases are a challenge to prosecute. "We hear people are corrupt, but proving it in a court of law is a different thing."

The newly reformed Police Commission has also begun to take a tougher line with the department. Led by commissioner and law professor Peter Keane, the commission voted unanimously May 19 to revoke a nine-year-old police policy that called for automatically withholding the names of officers involved in a shooting.

Although police command staff still reserve the right to decide on a case-by-case basis whether names will be withheld under the guise of protecting an ongoing investigation, this was the first time the commission had initiated a policy change against the wishes of the department.

In fact, the move was so unprecedented that it sparked a legal debate over whether the commission has the authority to make unilateral changes without consultation with the POA. (Deputy city attorney Mariam Morley said the answer, in this case, was yes.)

POA president Gary Delagnes (who has refused to speak directly with us, yet sat in the audience right behind me during the May 19 hearing) grumbled audibly throughout the long meeting, at one point telling a colleague he intended to "get in the face" of commissioners who supported the change.

When Delagnes finally took the podium, he angrily challenged Morley on her interpretation, before commission president Louise Renne gently ruled him out of order, requesting that he address the commission, not Morley. Delagnes also took issue with the long list of speakers, mostly from the African American community, who had spoken in favor of police accountability and the release of more details on the May 5 police shooting of Cammerin Boyd in the Western Addition.

"We hear people demanding a fair and unbiased investigation and then calling my officers thugs, murderers, and criminals," Delagnes said, expressing concern about what would happen if the department released the names of the officers who shot Boyd.

Before discussing the change in policy on officer-involved shootings, the commission and capacity crowd spent about two hours discussing a May 11 request by the American Civil Liberties Union for public records related to the Boyd shooting and the joint SFPD-California Highway Patrol crackdown in Bayview-Hunters Point on May 3 through 5 known as Operation Impact.

Capt. Denis O'Leary announced at the meeting that most of the request was being denied "because the release of those documents would compromise the investigations," although after repeated questions from Keane and other commissioners, he was never able to explain how releasing the documents in redacted form (to remove identifying information about witnesses, for example) would hamper the investigation (a similar information request made by the Bay Guardian May 6 was denied May 10).

Yet after being pressed by the commission, O'Leary agreed to release the names of the officers who shot Boyd by May 31 and to release other investigatory documents – such as the incident and medical examiner reports and radio logs – within 60 days.

Malika Parker of Bay Area Police Watch told us she was guardedly optimistic after attending the meeting: "I'm pleased to see the commission taking a hard look at this and leaving the impression that they'll hold the cops accountable."