Officer Terrance Stangel Takes The Stand In His Own Defense

San Francisco CA

25 February, 2022

5:35 AM

Description

By Eleni Balakrishnan, Mission Local February 23, 2022 After weeks of sitting silently in the courtroom, San Francisco Police Officer Terrance Stangel took the witness stand Wednesday, portraying himself as a well-meaning police officer who was trying to protect his partner from a violent Spiers when he beat Spiers near Fisherman's Wharf in 2019. Stangel is the first SFPD officer to face a criminal trial for use-of-force violations while on duty. He is charged with beating an unarmed Black man, Dacari Spiers, with a baton in 2019, and breaking two of Spiers' bones. Body-worn camera footage shows the officer hitting Spiers with a metal baton eight times in quick succession. On the witness stand, Stangel testified that he "believed every single baton strike at the time was necessary" to protect Officer Cuauhtémoc Martínez who reached Spiers first. 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.