SF Supes Call For Federal Investigation Into Mario Woods Shooting, Apology To Family
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- San Francisco Supervisors Tuesday called for an independent federal investigation into the police shooting of Mario Woods and a formal apology to Woods' family.
In a meeting attended by Woods' mother, Gwendolyn Woods, supervisors introduced a number of measures intended to step up scrutiny of the shooting and the police department following the Dec. 2 shooting.
Videos of the shooting, circulated widely on social media, appear to show officers encircling and firing at Woods as he started to walk away from them. The footage has galvanized those calling for police reform in San Francisco.
Board President London Breed today introduced a measure with Supervisor Malia Cohen calling for an investigation by the U.S Department of Justice, saying a probe by an independent outside agency was necessary to establish community trust and help make sure that deaths like Woods' never happen again.
"These items are so important to me because I know the pain of folks here today, I have felt it myself," Breed said. "I have mourned the loss of far too many young African Americans in my life and since Dec. 2, I have mourned another."
Supervisor David Campos introduced a measure calling for the board to offer its condolences and apologies to Gwendolyn Woods and make a commitment to "meaningful police reform." He and other supervisors including John Avalos and Jane Kim also offered their personal apologies and condolences in an emotional scene.
"Beyond remembering your son, who has become a symbol, what this resolution does is it puts the Board of Supervisors on record for the very first time saying officially that we need comprehensive police reform in San Francisco," Campos said.
Campos said that after speaking with Gwendolyn Woods he realized that he had had similar conversations with the families of previous police shooting victims in his district, Alex Nieto and Amilcar Perez-Lopez. He noted that the board had rejected a previous resolution in 2014 calling for police reform, and wondered "if we had gotten it right with Alex Nieto, if we had gotten it right with Amilcar Perez-Lopez, would we be here today?
Addressing the board, Gwendolyn Woods today said she and Mario had been born and raised in San Francisco, and that she remembered the city as a more diverse and "embracing" place. She choked back tears, however, as she demanded to know why the officers who had shot her son "like an animal" were back on the job.
"Thank you for the apology, but somebody please tell me why they're still back at work," Gwendolyn said. "I don't get it."
A police spokesperson Tuesday said the officers have been assigned to non-patrol duties while the shooting is under review, as dictated by department policy.
Breed also introduced a measure calling for the city to create a reward fund for information leading to arrests and convictions in unsolved homicides. Breed said the measure would establish clear criteria for the use of rewards, which the city until now has handled in an ad hoc way, without any established funding or clear policies in place for their use.
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