Commissioner MCO Violated the Law While Trying to Create More Rules for SFPD (Part III)
OMG! Deputy Chief prioritized Pelosi incident over responding to his emails
All these new rules by the police commission makes doing anything too risky.
SFPD Officer’s text to me April 2023
The San Francisco Police Commission is responsible for rendering decisions on whether SFPD officers violated laws or the Department’s General Orders (D.G.O.’s). Essentially, police commissioners are the triers of facts. It is not their role to prosecute officers, as by doing so would compromise the perception of their objectivity.
Consider how would it look if a San Francisco judge, bypassed law enforcement’s arrest process by compelling a person to attend court, where the judge presented the case, and then rendered a guilty verdict? Yet that is exactly what Police Commissioner Max Carter Oberstone (MCO) did to SFPD Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani at the commission hearing on February 15, 2023. That is, until Chief Will Scott was forced to stop him.
California law enforcement officers are protected from embarrassing “public lynching’s” by the 3300 sections of the California Government Code. Pursuant to these statutes, if a police officer is compelled to answer questions that may result in disciplinary penalties, the officer must be given prior notice of the interrogation (Section 3303 (b)); the questioning should be conducted during normal business hours (Section 3303 (a)); and to protect against grandstanding for political purposes, the officer is allowed to have an attorney present (Section 3303 (i)).
We already know of MCO’s reputation for betraying Mayor London Breed. But now there is video evidence that MCO, an attorney, not only violated the law, but also document his severe prejudices against police officers and establishes he is too biased to rule on disciplinary cases.
The Police Commission continues to create more bureaucratic work
In July 2022, the police commission enacted D.G.O. 3.01, which established time guidelines for SFPD to respond to rule recommendations made by SFPD’s oversight board, the Department of Police Accountability (DPA). At the February 15, 2023, Police Commission hearing, MCO discussed how 26 of the SFPD D.G.O.’s needed to be revised.
MCO is singularly focused on the voluminous changing rules SFPD officers must be constantly updated on, stay current on, and adhere to. At the same time, MCO’s signature policy is reducing the traffic laws criminals need to abide by (like driving without license plates). MCO wants more rules for cops, fewer rules for criminals, and no California statutes apply to him because he’s special.
Governor Newsom recently sent both the National Guard and the California Highway Patrol to the Tenderloin in an attempt to eradicate fentanyl sales. Neither of these two organizations possess anywhere near the street skills of SFPD’s undercover and narcotics officers. What these two organizations deliver to the Tenderloin is that they are both exempt from dealing with the overregulations imposed by the Police Commission and the trivial investigations by DPA that follow. In the past, outside police agencies laugh when DPA sends them a notice they are being investigated for making a drug dealer take a seat on the sidewalk to deter their flight. You can’t be serious? He’s a drug dealer killing people with fentanyl.
Are Deputy Chief Vaswani’s excuses valid?
At the February 15th commission meeting, MCO reviewed how DPA emailed SFPD on October 27, 2022, requesting documents regarding proposed rule changes and Vaswani did not respond in a timely manner. MCO didn’t like Vaswani’s excuse that he got tied up that evening on a citizen that was assaulted. Maybe you read about the Paul Pelosi assault?
Next, MCO inserted his fellow advocate Janelle Caywood, from DPA, as a witness against Vaswani.
Caywood, Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto, and MCO are all associated with the Coalition to End Bias Stops.[1] So Caywood’s appearance and perspectives at the commission hearing were hardly independent of MCO’s, and cemented the appearance that MCO was prosecuting Vaswani.
Caywood stated it should have only taken an hour for Vaswani to complete the task they had requested in their October 27th email.
After Caywood spoke, MCO compelled Vaswani back to the stand. Per MCO, even if Vaswani was tied up on the Pelosi case, his real failure was to not ask for an extension of time to comply with DPA’s request by December 6, 2022. This time, Vaswani’s excuse was that he was tied up preparing for a person named Michelle Obama visiting San Francisco[2] that week.
At one point in MCO’s interrogation, he complained that Vaswani frequently posted on Twitter about SFPD’s accomplishments, while not tending to the DPA email:
I counted (Vaswani’s tweets) because I have too much time on my hands. You sent 189 tweets. So, my point is you had time to send 189 tweets, but you didn’t have time to send a 5-minute email we can’t meet the deadline because we have these more important matters? (30 second video here)
Three things:
a) If you have ever signed a legal document, you know it only take two seconds to sign, but that is not indicative of the time required to evaluate the document,
b) Most fresh attorneys focus on building up billable hours to establish their value to their law firm. But Orrick Law allows MCO to count SFPD’s tweets on company time? Or is the Policing Project paying for MCO’s tweet counting? Either way, including the time MCO spends analyzing traffic stops, and Vaswani’s tweets, when does MCO perform work as an attorney? Or has MCO been assigned a basket weaving position at Orrick? and
c) Considering how MCO “has too much time on his hands” counting tweets on Orrick’s time, what right does he have to question how others spend their time at work? But he’s special.
Pretending to be Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, MCO continued his violation of the 3300 sections of the California Code by prosecuting Vaswani with over 30 interrogating questions (the questions follow this article). Meanwhile, President Cindy Elias, a former public defender, allowed MCO’s violations of the law to continue. Of course, it’s her husband’s civil suits against police officers that puts food on Elias’ table, so the optics of finding any faults in SFPD benefits her financially.
Finally, SFPD Chief Will Scott interrupted MCO (40-second video here):
Chief Scott: “So, if we are going to go down the track of accusing…..”
MCO: “No, no. That’s not where I’m going.”
Chief Scott: “If you are going to go down the track of accusing Deputy Chief Vaswani of a disciplinary violation, I will not stand here and allow that to happen in public.”
MCO: “That’s not what I’m doing.”
Chief Scott: “You are already doing it.”
Chief Scott had recognized the laws that the attorney was breaking.
MCO, a suggestion for Vaswani’s discipline: maybe you can have him serve an hour of detention after the next commission meeting and write 100 times, “I will respond to DPA emails before handling emergencies with international implications.” That sounds fair to me.
Why MCO should be removed from the police commission
The quote at the top of this article captures how veteran SFPD officers fear the police commission’s political agenda. The most recent SFPD Academy class (above) could only attract 9 officers. Today, The Wall Street Journal credited San Francisco with the largest percentage population exodus (7.5%) of any major US city between April 2020 and July 2022. MCO, these events are all related!
Yet, last week the Police Commission started discussions on their plans to monitor what social media sites SFPD officers can view at home. They weren’t talking about extremist websites or pornography; they were talking about Facebook and TikTok where gangsters flaunt their crimes. Is this not a clear sign that the San Francisco Police Commission has lost touch with what’s happening to San Francisco?
As covered in the first segment of this series, MCO’s betrayal of Mayor Breed, raises issues about his integrity and that he obviously hid his strong anti-police attitudes from her. In my second segment, I covered the absurd cherry-picked stats that he apparently fed to the Chronicle to perpetuate his false narrative on pretext traffic stops. And now in this segment, it appears obvious MCO, as a commissioner, doesn’t understand the law, has violated the law, lacks objectivity, and for the safety of our city, should be removed as a commissioner immediately.
MCO, I will look for your response to this article in the Mission Local. Such a Chesa move: feed the Mission Local an article and then retweet it. And thanks for finally disclosing to the ML that you graduated from Urban High School (current tuition of $55,000 per year). But please don’t duck defending the RIPA stats you reference about all those 9-year-olds getting arrested for driving. We have to go after those cops that arrested them.
San Francisco Police Commission Hearing February 15, 2023
M.C.O.’s violation of the law by interrogating SFPD Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani
Can you explain what your role is exactly with as it relates to the revision of D.G.O. 8.10?
(MCO cuts off Vaswani’s explanation) Certainly, we’ll get to that. Do I have it right, and does Ms. Caywood have it right that there was no response to October 27th and November 22nd email?
And why was there no response?
You’re not saying there wasn’t time to send an email saying that “Hey we’re very busy were working on this extremely high-profile matter? There was not time to do that?
So, you didn’t open the email on October 27th? So, you did or did not open the email? You’re sure you didn’t open the email? You’re not sure?
Ms Caywood said it would take an hour to respond. Do you think that’s right?
Is Ms Caywood’s characterization roughly accurate that it should take an hour to do that?
What’s your best guess (on time needed)? Ballpark?
So how long did it take roughly?
Why didn’t the Department meet the December 6th deadline? Is there a reason other than the Pelosi investigation?
I have a more specific question. Why did you not meet the December 6th deadline? Are there any other things (besides the Pelosi investigation)? The reason I am asking is that there are 20 business days that elapsed. Was there really not 3 hours in those 20 business days to respond to this grid (deadline)? I just want to be clear; you are saying there wasn’t two to three hours?
I guess I’m just asking, because if someone works 8 hours per day, for 20 business days, it’s 160 hours. If there’s not something else?
Can I ask you a separate question, why didn’t you seek an extension of time before the December 6th deadline? Why didn’t you?
You knew the December 6th deadline was pending and you decided not to seek an extension? And you don’t know why?
So, you didn’t have time to send the extension request?
Do you have a personal twitter account? And you tweet a lot? And a lot of it is about SFPD work?
Between the first email you received from Ms. Caywood and the December 6th deadline, how many tweets do you think you sent?
I counted because I have too much time on my hands, you sent 189 tweets. So, my point is you had the time to send 189 tweets, but you didn’t have time to send a 5-minute email we can’t meet the deadline because we have these more important matters?
You didn’t have two hours in all that time to respond to the recommendation grid (timeline)?
The commission has charter authority to set policy for the department, right?
So, when we pass D.G.O.’s they have the force of law, right?
So, when D.G.O.’s are violated, that’s a violation of the law, right?
So, it seems you were aware of the deadline, you willfully decided not to seek a deadline and despite having the time to do so.
Chief: So, if we are going to go down the track of accusing this….
MCO: No, no, that’s not where I’m going.
Chief: If you are going to go down the track of accusing Deputy Chief Vaswani of a disciplinary violation, I will not stand here and allow that to happen in public.
MCO: That’s not what I’m doing.
Chief: You are already doing it.
[1] This Coalition also relies on the Racial Identity Profiling Advisory Board’s (RIPA) statistics.
Somehow, RIPA has determined that an abundance of children in California are getting arrested for driving, despite California Welfare & Institutional Code Section 602 specifically preventing law enforcement officers from arresting children under 12 years of age for driving.
[2] Of course, Michele Obama is the former First Lady, and no disrespect was intended. This was just a little sarcasm versus MCO.
The sarcasm was Gold. Yes, MCO needs to exit stage left. I'm so sick and tired of these biased anti police commissioners who haven't a clue on how their ridiculous policies affect everyday citizens who choose not to break the law. Must be nice to live in Ivory Towers.
Lou - It sounds like this MCO person is giving attorneys a bad name.
Even if he hates cops, you might think his professional ethics would cause him to work well within the boundaries of the Police Commission procedures, but then San Francisco has an Ethics Commission that is a bonofide oxymoron in practice.
Does Mayor Breed have a way out to replace Mr. MCO, or is everyone stuck with him for his full term?
If I were Mayor, and felt betrayed as you say, I would willingly accept all of the public humiliation of admitting my mistake as long as I get this guy replaced by someone fair and reasonable.