SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco Police administrators acted appropriately in delaying disciplinary action against officers caught exchanging racist and homophobic text messages until after a federal corruption investigation ended, a California appellate court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling now raises the possibility the officers could face punishment.
Officer Rain Daughtery successfully sued in 2015 to stop the disciplinary proceedings against him and nine unnamed officers.
A trial court judge cited a California statute of limitations law requiring officers be punished within a year of their transgressions. The judge said the department waited too long before trying to fire the officers.
The Court of Appeal reversed that decision Wednesday, ruling that there are exceptions to the statute of limitations. The unanimous three-judge panel said the department acted appropriately in waiting for the federal corruption investigation to end.
Neither the San Francisco Police Officers Association nor Daughtery’s attorney, Alison Wilkenson, returned phone calls late Wednesday seeking comment.
The judges sent the case back to the trial court.
The inappropriate texts messages emerged during the 2012 federal corruption investigation of former officer Ian Furminger. Texts he exchanged with other officers were seized as part of the investigation. The SFPD’s administrators weren’t notified of the texts until a jury found Furminger guilty in December 2014. Others in the department were notified earlier, but former Chief Greg Suhr said they were barred from acting because of a federal protective order barring disclosure of the texts.
Judge Martin Jenkins, writing for the court, said the department and Suhr acted appropriately.
“SFPD cooperated with federal authorities by adhering to (federal prosecutors) confidentiality restriction and a federal protective order during the pendency of a wide-ranging criminal investigation aimed at uncovering the full scope of a conspiracy within the department’s ranks,” Jenkins concluded.
SFPD officials didn’t return phone calls and email sent late Wednesday.
Suhr was forced to resign in May 2016 after officers fatally shot a black auto theft suspect, the third minority suspect killed by police. The text scandals added to the department’s woes and were part of critics’ complaints of Suhr’s stewardship.