Shift in how San Francisco investigates officer-involved shootings
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - The San Francisco District Attorney's Office will soon become the lead investigator for officer-involved shootings in the city thanks to funding from the mayor's office.
Mayor Ed Lee hopes that by creating a new investigative unit in the DA's office, it will alleviate concerns about cops policing themselves and help clear the backlog of police shooting cases.
We spoke to the mother of Mario Woods this afternoon, whose son was killed by police on December 2, 2015.
Cell phone video of the incident is unbearable for Gwendolyn Woods to watch.
Almost as hard, she says is the District Attorney's failure to decide whether or not charges should be filed against the officers.
"It's not acceptable at all," she said in between sobs. “Give families at least give us closure. To add insult to injury we may not see anything happen to these men. [The DA] goes home at the end of the day and you go home to your family and for us... for me? Personally? I go home and I know I have to live now with my baby is gone."
Woods says it's about time Mayor Ed Lee allocated funding to create a unit of 14 people within the DA's office to investigate officer-involved shootings as opposed to police spearheading the investigations. "Please let us move forward with our lives and grieve our babies," Woods said.
The goal is to eliminate any potential police bias as well as clear the backlog of open cases on 10 deadly officer involved shootings dating as far back as 2014.
"Part of this whole process is increasing transparency and increasing accountability," said DA spokesperson Max Szabo. "The whole point of this is to ensure that the community can more trust in these investigations and their outcomes."
According to the Civil Grand Jury Report, it has taken the SF DA's office an average of 611 days to make a charging decision with regards to fatal officer-involved shootings. Compare that to Alameda Count,-where over the past two years, it's taken less than half that time and San Mateo County, where it's never longer than 10 weeks.
"That's largely due to the insufficient resources that we have to conduct these investigations."
The DA's Office is not providing any timetable on when the cases might be closed.
While the SF Police Officers' Association supports an independent investigation, President Martin Halloran wants the State Attorney General to do the job, not DA George Gascon. "The lead agency doing the investigation is also going to do the charging? How is that separate and independent? I see a conflict with that," said Halloran. Since George Gascon took over as DA he has had a poisonous relationship with the San Francisco Police Department and my members of the POA, he has proven that time and time again... so I don't think he could remain fair and impartial."
Meanwhile, sources at SFPD tell KTVU that police completed their end of the investigation on the Woods case back in March.
Now it's in the hands of District Attorney's Office and Gwendolyn Woods is still waiting for an answer.