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San Francisco's mayor shows the country what a real attack on the free press looks like washex.am/2QaPJR6
When two San Francisco police officers knocked on Bryan Carmody’s door in April they politely requested that Mr. Carmody, a freelance videographer, reveal who had leaked a police report to him about the mysterious death of the city’s public defender.
“They were nice about it,” Mr. Carmody said. “Of course I said, ‘No, I’m not going to tell you guys.’”
But when a dozen officers returned to his home on Friday, this time their guns were drawn and they came equipped with a search warrant, a sledgehammer and a battering ram.
But when a dozen officers returned to his home on Friday, this time their guns were drawn and they came equipped with a search warrant, a sledgehammer and a battering ram.
Carmody claims he was restrained in handcuffs for nearly six hours as the authorities ransacked his home, seizing “laptops, phones and hard drives — including all the images and documents he had archived from his 29-year career as a reporter and cameraman,” the report adds.
Law enforcement officials have neither denied nor contradicted the freelancer’s version of events. The San Francisco Police Department has not yet returned Carmody’s equipment. The raid, which was signed off on by two trial court judges, also included agents from the FBI.
And all because Carmody refused to give up a confidential source, as is his right. The mayor sees it differently, though, and she is digging in.
“San Francisco Police Department is in the process of conducting an investigation into how confidential information was released within the Department."
As part of this investigation, the Department went through the appropriate legal process to request a search warrant, which was approved by two judges,” Mayor @LondonBreed's office said in a statement this week that is equal parts mealy-mouthed and defiant.
.@LondonBreed’s statement adds: “I believe that someone from within the Department needs to be held accountable for the release of this information, and the Police need to continue that internal investigation using legal and appropriate means.”
The mayor apparently has a different definition of “appropriate” from the rest of us.
