Attorney for SFPD Officer Charged In Beating Says DA Can t Get His Facts Straight
The attorney representing a San Francisco Police officer whom District Attorney Chesa Boudin charged with assault and battery on Monday has shot back with a statement saying her client acted lawfully in the 2019 incident in question.
Boudin announced the charges on Monday against Officer Terrance Stangel stemming from an October 6, 2019 encounter in which Stangel and his partner, Officer Cuahtemoc Martinez, were called to the scene of what a witness allegedly described as a domestic violence incident. The incident happened during Fleet Week last fall, when 32-year-old Dacari Spiers says he had come to Pier 39 to watch the air show with his girlfriend and cousin. That evening, near the intersection of Powell and Beach streets, Stangel and Martinez were responding to a report of a person being strangled.
D.A. Chesa Boudin declines to file charges in two 2020 S.F. police shootings [San Francisco Chronicle]
Dec. 11 San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has declined to file charges against officers connected to two separate police shootings this year, including the one that killed 21-year-old Cesar Vargas in October.
Boudin, who announced the decisions on Thursday, said evidence in both incidents showed the officers’ use of force amounted to lawful self-defense.
“My office carefully reviews the specific facts in each case involving officer use-of-force so we can determine when charges are warranted as well as when officers acting under stressful situations behaved lawfully,” Boudin said in a statement.