The Dirty Harry Vibe Emanating From The SFPD Beating Case

San Francisco CA

14 February, 2022

5:11 PM

Description

By Joe Eskenazi, Mission Local February 14, 2022 The trial of Officer Terrance Stangel, who in 2019 severely beat unarmed Black man Dacari Spiers with a baton, rolls into its second week today. Politically, this has been something of an assasination-of-Archduke-Franz Ferdinand moment: San Francisco's first prosecution of a police officer for an on-the-job beating has triggered open warfare between the District Attorney and police department, with politicians' or community members' political alliances to one entity or the other leading to cascading hostilities. It's a complicated situation, but this much is not: On Oct. 6, 2019, San Francisco police officers received a 911 call alleging domestic violence near Fisherman's Wharf by a man matching Spiers' description. When they arrived, there was no domestic violence going on. Nonetheless, Officer Cuauhtémoc Martínez quickly put hands on Spiers and his partner Stangel followed with the baton. To read the full article, click here. Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.