Video Shows SFPD Informant Targeting Black Woman Over Asian Woman In Drug Sting Operation
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- New video shows an undercover San Francisco police informant ignoring an Asian woman who may have been offering drugs, and instead going after a black woman in an operation that ended with 37 suspects were arrested, all of whom were black.
The body camera video obtained by SF Weekly shows the Asian woman approaching the informant. But, the informant turned his attention to a black woman next to him on the phone.
The video then cuts to the informant in a car, where he explains why he chose to buy drugs off the black woman instead.
"When the other girl act like she wasn't paying attention on the phone, I got her attention. I say I want the good s**t," the informant can be heard saying.
Also in the video, an unidentified San Francisco Police officer is heard saying during rooftop surveillance "f***ing BMs." BMs is the police shorthand for 'black males.'
Watch Undercover Video (Warning: Explicit Language)
Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez of the Public Defender's Office said the video showed an implicit racial bias in the drug-dealing group round up dubbed 'Operation Safe Schools.'
The department is embroiled in a bias scandal involving officers exchanging racist and homophobic text messages.
Attorneys for the arrested suspects have asked for charges to be dropped, but legal analyst Melissa Griffin-Caen says racial bias doesn't erase the crime.
"When there's evidence you sold drugs for money, whether or not you were a part of a group that was targeted, it does not technically get you out of that conviction," Griffin-Caen said.
