![]() ![]() “It was in that moment, Officer Stangel knew, this guy was too big and too strong,” Pifari said. Pifari said Stangel attempted to call for backup, but when that failed he jumped in to try to help his partner. Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts. “He saw his partner getting moved around like a rag doll,” Pifari said, noting that Spiers weighed substantially more than either officer. When it was her turn before a jury, defense attorney Nicole Pifari highlighted the initial domestic violence call that prompted the police response, and said her client began using force after witnessing Spiers shoving Martinez. ![]() Moore showed the jury statements from Richard and witnesses at the scene who denied that Spiers was assaulting Richard before police arrived. In the clips, Spiers can be heard yelling “What did I do?,” “What are you hitting me for” and “I didn’t do nothing.” “What you’re going to see, is that Dacari was confused,” Moore said, citing audio from the officers’ body-worn cameras. Spiers fell into the fetal position, where Stangel continued to strike his legs. Stangel delivered three strikes with his baton in a matter of two seconds, Moore said. Neither Martinez nor Stangel, who followed close behind, stated that they were police officers, or that they were responding to a call of domestic violence, Moore said. Moore told the jury that just seven seconds elapsed between the time Martinez exited the patrol car and when he grabbed Spiers. The two stopped near the trunk of a car, Moore said, and Spiers was hugging, kissing and reassuring Richard.Īt some point, Stangel and another officer, Cuahtemoc Martinez, pulled up to the couple after responding to a report that a man matching Spiers’ description was choking a woman and dragging her down the street. Richard was upset, Moore said, and the couple made their way back to a car to see if her wallet was there. In his statements before the jury, Assistant District Attorney Hans Moore described how Spiers and his girlfriend, Breonna Richard, were out near Fisherman’s Wharf with friends when Richard noticed that her wallet was missing. But the impasse has raised concerns about the future of police accountability in San Francisco. An investigator in Boudin’s office had testified in a pretrial hearing that prosecutors pressured her to withhold evidence favorable to Stangel from police.īoudin denied wrongdoing by his office. The trial took on even greater significance last week when police Chief Bill Scott said he planned to sever an agreement that names the D.A.’s office as the lead investigative agency in police use-of-force cases. Boudin’s office is currently prosecuting six officers in five separate use-of-force cases, and Stangel’s is the first to go before a jury. The trial marks the first known excessive force case against an on-duty San Francisco police officer, and is seen as a major test for District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who has vowed to hold police responsible for wrongdoing. Stangel faces four charges: battery with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury - with an allegation that he did in fact cause great bodily injury - and assault under the color of authority. Jurors will be left to weigh whether Spiers was assaulting or comforting his girlfriend before police arrived, whether he was confused or combative when officers approached him and, ultimately, whether Stangel’s use of force was reasonable. But the lawyers offered competing versions of how Spiers reacted when he was confronted by Stangel and another officer. ![]()
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