Earlier this month, I got the runaround from San Francisco Police Department spokesman Albie Esparza, pictured, trying to get answers about their written policy for sharing mugshots of arrestees on Twitter.
It took a public records request to Briseida Banuelos of the legal division for social media policies to learn there are no such written regulation. Banuelos said "release of mugshots is discretionary."
After almost 24-hours of news accounts regarding the arrest of Chris Kohrs, known as the "Hot Cop of the Castro" for his well-developed and many times photographed body, for a hit-and-run accident he caused in the early morning hours of Nov. 29th, no mugshot of the arrestee has been distributed to the public. Two individuals were transported to the hospital and Kohrs allegedly left the scene of his accident.
Since all I'm getting is radio silence outta the department, I've today lodged a request for an investigation with the Office of Citizen Complaints for the following reasons:
"1. Withholding the mugshot of arrested officer Chris Kohrs, who was booked on two felony accounts on Nov 29th, for a hit-and-run accident he caused that sent two persons to the hospital with serious injuries in the early morning hours yesterday. Despite numerous pleas to the Twitter accounts of @SFPD, @OfficerAlbie, @OfficerGrace and @SFPDChiefSuhr from my account @MichaelPetrelis over yesterday and today, the department has failed to acknowledge receipt of my request and has no provided me with the mugshot.
"2. As of this writing, on Nov 30th around 2:25 pm, the SFPD's archived news site contains no info about Kohrs' arrest: http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=3763. In other high-profile arrests involving suspects who are not cops, the SFPD has quickly posted news of their arrests and mugshots either on the department's site or via social media. Why is Kohrs' being treated differently by the public info division?
"3. According to the SFist.com report about Kohrs' arrest, the SFPD release stated in part, "due to pending identification matters, no booking photo will be released at this time." I have no idea why Kohrs' was arrested and a mugshot taken if a pending identification matter is still open. Your office needs to investigate exactly what this vague phraseology means and why the alleged matter is reason to withhold Kohrs' mugshot."
To end the special privileges of cops in San Francisco, it's going to take many citizens and institutions demanding the police department once and for all develop written mugshot policies that apply to all arrestees.
No more of this discretionary posting on social media of only certain persons arrested and the b.s. of saying unknown and supposed identification issues need to be cleared up first.
The special treatment it appears Kohrs is receiving from his SFPD colleagues does tremendous harm to community policing.
"due to pending identification matters, no booking photo will be released at this time." What if hot cop is claiming he wasn't the driver, maybe their waiting for witnesses that were on scene to pick him out of a line up as the driver that fled. I also read in the examiner that he was arrested 12 HOURS after he fled, can you look into that. They probably knew he was drunk and gave him time to sober up, to late to check for DUI 12 hours later
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