San Francisco To Pay Dacari Spiers $700,000 In 2019 Police Beating Case Roiling PD, DA's Office
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) -- The city of San Francisco will pay a Black man brutally beaten by a police officer in 2019 $700,000 to settle a civil lawsuit after the Board of Supervisors approved the move Tuesday.
Dacari Spiers suffered a broken leg and wrist as well as lacerations to his leg after an encounter with San Francisco police officer Terrance Stangel in October 2019.
Stangel and another officer initially responded to the city's Fisherman's Wharf area after witnesses reported a man choking a woman. Spiers and his attorneys filed the civil lawsuit against the city in February 2020, alleging Spiers' civil rights were violated.
In a separate criminal case, the District Attorney's Office has charged Stangel with battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault likely to cause great bodily injury, and assault under color of authority for beating Spiers. Stangel becomes the first on-duty officer in the city's history charged with such crimes.
Supervisors were set to vote on the settlement in the civil case during last week's board meeting, however, Supervisor Catherine Stefani requested continuing the vote so that supervisors could meet with the City Attorney's Office to discuss the case in a closed session.
The continuance came just after the week prior, District Attorney's Office Criminal Investigator Magen Hayashi testified in the criminal case that she felt pressured to mislead police investigators and withhold evidence from a sworn affidavit.
Since that testimony, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott has withdrawn from a memorandum of understanding between the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office, citing an alleged pattern of withholding and concealing evidence by District Attorney Chesa Boudin's office in police misconduct cases.
"Independent of any criminal case involving Officer Stangel, whose actions were captured on body worn camera, the truth of the matter is that Dacari Spiers was repeatedly beaten by police with a baton, including while Spiers was on the ground," Supervisor Dean Preston said during Tuesday's board meeting.
"The objections (to the criminal case) are completely unrelated to the civil case before us," he said.
While Supervisor Rafael Mandelman acknowledged the civil case and the criminal case are separate matters, he said, "I think the allegations of how the District Attorney's Office handled this case is concerning. The allegation that an investigator was pressured to withhold evidence is concerning."
"I too am bothered by the way this case has played out," Stefani said. "What is the credibility of everything?"
Stefani further said Hayashi's testimony that she withheld information provided by witnesses who alleged Spiers was choking his girlfriend was "triggering."
"There is evidence of domestic violence here; tons of it," she said. "For me this comes down to my feeling and my fears of how nonchalantly the domestic violence case is being brushed aside."
Preston noted that it was then-interim District Attorney Suzy Loftus and not Boudin, who, after reviewing evidence in the case during the initial stages, chose not charge Spiers with domestic violence.
"There's no new domestic violence case to bring and, in fact, the statute of limitations here has run," he said. "Let's not create a factual background that is not accurate here."
Ultimately, supervisors voted 8-2 to approve the settlement, with Mandelman and Stefani voting against it.
Supervisor Matt Haney was absent from the meeting.
