Despite San Francisco Police Commission appointed member Max Carter-Obserstone’s (MCO’s) repeated denials, it appears Lou Barberini’s article has caught MCO “dead to rights” — an idiomatic suggestion meaning that both all available evidence and all circumstantial evidence illustrates definitively that a person accused of doing whatever they were accused of doing have been caught doing something wrong, with undeniable evidence against them.
From my perspective, it appears Barberini caught MCO red-handed in the act of the crime of leaking confidential information from an ongoing, active investigation. The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association (SFPOA) and Officer Chris Kosta’s lawyers should follow-up on Barberini’s exposé of the origins of this leaked information.
So, too, should the San Francisco Ethics Commission, and other San Francisco government oversight bodies. That’s because there are express provisions in the “Statement of Incompatible Activities” (SIA) that is applicable to all members of both the Police Department and members of San Francisco’s Police Commission. The applicable SIA — https://sfethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Police_Department_and_Police_Commission_SIA.pdf — clearly contains in it’s title (San Francisco Police Commission and Police Department Statement of Incompatible Activities) that it is applicable to MCO as an appointed member of the Police Commission, just as it applicable to every beat copy, Sergeant, Captain, and the Chief of Police.
If my memory serves me, every City employee and every member appointed to official Commissions having oversight of a City Department, are required to sign the SIA applicable to their respective departments, since each City department has separate SIA’s tailored to their Department’s unique duties and jurisdictions. When he was appointed to the Police Commission, MCO may have had to sign a statement acknowledging he would comply with the SFPD SIA.
This is relevant precisely because the SFPD and Police Commission SIA expressly states in § IV-B, Use of City Work-Product, that police officers and Commission members may not publish or otherwise use (especially not use in social media Tweets) non-public materials prepared on City time without previously obtaining appropriate authorization to do so. “Appropriate authorization” includes authorization granted by law, including San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance, California’s Public Records Act, and the Ralph Brown Act, among other laws.
It’s thought all of these laws prohibit release of the confidential information about any sergeant’s traffic stops that could have only come from the release of confidential information about an ongoing investigation by either SFPD or the Department of Police Accountability DPA). Assuming there is a DPA investigation — not an SFPD investigation — of Officer Kosta that may have been assigned to Commissioner Carter-Oberstone, that investigation is confidential work-product of the Police Commission covered under the SIA’s “work-product” prohibition containing information that shouldn’t have been leaked to local news media.
Since news of the Officer Kosta case appears to have come from an internal leak about a case that was assigned to Carter-Oberstone, this appears to also be a violation of the SIA applicable to MCO, and deserves to be investigated by San Francisco’s Ethics Commission, up to and including removing Carter-Oberstone from the Police Commission, along with civil fines that may be applicable, and a prohibiton against holding future appointment on any other City Boards and Commissions.
I had to wonder whether Carter-Oberstone’s September 26th Twitter post that Barberini included in this article contained a Freudian slip typo. Not only did MCO’s 9/26 Tweet contain the glaring error ascribing the leaked officer’s name (Chris Kosta) as having been posted to SFPD’s website when Max should have acknowledged it was temporarily posted on the Police Commission’s web site (not SFPD’s) before being taken down. But in his 9/26 Tweet, Max’s opening clause read “1. I did now, nor have I ever, leaked confidential documents.” Too bad he didn’t proofread his own Tweet before uploading it. In a Freudian slip, did Max mistype the word “now,” rather than typing the word “not” — in a subconscious and affirmative admission that he did now leak confidential information, when he may have meant to type “I did not, nor have I ever …”?
I assume Barberini included that Tweet from an essentially uneditable screen capture, and didn’t edit or alter MCO’s Tweet..
In his article, Barberini clearly documented that the “leaked” information had come from MCO. It’s as clear of a “cookie crumb” trail as a Hansel and Gretel story, even though MCO appears to be merely quibbling over a distinction between leaked “documents” in his denial, vs. leaked “information.”
It also seems clear from reading Barberini’s reporting that San Francisco Chronicle reporter Susie Neilson, San Francisco Standard reporter Michael Barba, and Mission Local reporter Eleni Balkarisnan have refused to provide how they acquired the sources of data they relied on in their articles.
And it seems clear to me that the three reporters’ beef with Barberini is that he has exposed their complicity with Max Carter-Oberstone in publishing leaked confidential data involving an on-going investigation. The three appear annoyed that they’ve been rightly, and publicly, exposed for not independently verifying from another corroborating source, and not independently analyzing the sources of data they claim to have “analyzed.” So much for the three reporters’ investigatory skills.
Barberini is also absolutely right to question whether Neilson or Barba took credit for data analysis performed only by Carter-Oberstone, which would be tantamount to plagiarism — given that Barberini uncovered that neither Neilson nor Barba had placed public records requests to obtain the database Carter-Oberstone himself admitted is extremely difficult to come by. Although “MCO” may have obtained that database himself, it’s not clear how and where he obtained the database, whether he obtained it as a public record and had not obtained it as “work product” in his role as a Police Commissioner, or whether there were restrictions on whether “MCO” could share that database with others, such as journalists.
The three reporters appear peeved Barberini could trace this Hansel and Gretal saga so easily back to Max, and expose MCO as the likely source of their misguided articles perpetuating publication of leaked confidential information about an active investigation that appears to violate Officer Kosta’s due process rights.
So the the Commission is supposed to provide oversight, right? But who oversees the overseer? This needs to be invested by an outside agency in order to clear MCO and to make sure confidentially is not broken. How can the community or the police trust this organization if there is no transparency?
Despite San Francisco Police Commission appointed member Max Carter-Obserstone’s (MCO’s) repeated denials, it appears Lou Barberini’s article has caught MCO “dead to rights” — an idiomatic suggestion meaning that both all available evidence and all circumstantial evidence illustrates definitively that a person accused of doing whatever they were accused of doing have been caught doing something wrong, with undeniable evidence against them.
From my perspective, it appears Barberini caught MCO red-handed in the act of the crime of leaking confidential information from an ongoing, active investigation. The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association (SFPOA) and Officer Chris Kosta’s lawyers should follow-up on Barberini’s exposé of the origins of this leaked information.
So, too, should the San Francisco Ethics Commission, and other San Francisco government oversight bodies. That’s because there are express provisions in the “Statement of Incompatible Activities” (SIA) that is applicable to all members of both the Police Department and members of San Francisco’s Police Commission. The applicable SIA — https://sfethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Police_Department_and_Police_Commission_SIA.pdf — clearly contains in it’s title (San Francisco Police Commission and Police Department Statement of Incompatible Activities) that it is applicable to MCO as an appointed member of the Police Commission, just as it applicable to every beat copy, Sergeant, Captain, and the Chief of Police.
If my memory serves me, every City employee and every member appointed to official Commissions having oversight of a City Department, are required to sign the SIA applicable to their respective departments, since each City department has separate SIA’s tailored to their Department’s unique duties and jurisdictions. When he was appointed to the Police Commission, MCO may have had to sign a statement acknowledging he would comply with the SFPD SIA.
This is relevant precisely because the SFPD and Police Commission SIA expressly states in § IV-B, Use of City Work-Product, that police officers and Commission members may not publish or otherwise use (especially not use in social media Tweets) non-public materials prepared on City time without previously obtaining appropriate authorization to do so. “Appropriate authorization” includes authorization granted by law, including San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance, California’s Public Records Act, and the Ralph Brown Act, among other laws.
It’s thought all of these laws prohibit release of the confidential information about any sergeant’s traffic stops that could have only come from the release of confidential information about an ongoing investigation by either SFPD or the Department of Police Accountability DPA). Assuming there is a DPA investigation — not an SFPD investigation — of Officer Kosta that may have been assigned to Commissioner Carter-Oberstone, that investigation is confidential work-product of the Police Commission covered under the SIA’s “work-product” prohibition containing information that shouldn’t have been leaked to local news media.
Since news of the Officer Kosta case appears to have come from an internal leak about a case that was assigned to Carter-Oberstone, this appears to also be a violation of the SIA applicable to MCO, and deserves to be investigated by San Francisco’s Ethics Commission, up to and including removing Carter-Oberstone from the Police Commission, along with civil fines that may be applicable, and a prohibiton against holding future appointment on any other City Boards and Commissions.
I had to wonder whether Carter-Oberstone’s September 26th Twitter post that Barberini included in this article contained a Freudian slip typo. Not only did MCO’s 9/26 Tweet contain the glaring error ascribing the leaked officer’s name (Chris Kosta) as having been posted to SFPD’s website when Max should have acknowledged it was temporarily posted on the Police Commission’s web site (not SFPD’s) before being taken down. But in his 9/26 Tweet, Max’s opening clause read “1. I did now, nor have I ever, leaked confidential documents.” Too bad he didn’t proofread his own Tweet before uploading it. In a Freudian slip, did Max mistype the word “now,” rather than typing the word “not” — in a subconscious and affirmative admission that he did now leak confidential information, when he may have meant to type “I did not, nor have I ever …”?
I assume Barberini included that Tweet from an essentially uneditable screen capture, and didn’t edit or alter MCO’s Tweet..
In his article, Barberini clearly documented that the “leaked” information had come from MCO. It’s as clear of a “cookie crumb” trail as a Hansel and Gretel story, even though MCO appears to be merely quibbling over a distinction between leaked “documents” in his denial, vs. leaked “information.”
It also seems clear from reading Barberini’s reporting that San Francisco Chronicle reporter Susie Neilson, San Francisco Standard reporter Michael Barba, and Mission Local reporter Eleni Balkarisnan have refused to provide how they acquired the sources of data they relied on in their articles.
And it seems clear to me that the three reporters’ beef with Barberini is that he has exposed their complicity with Max Carter-Oberstone in publishing leaked confidential data involving an on-going investigation. The three appear annoyed that they’ve been rightly, and publicly, exposed for not independently verifying from another corroborating source, and not independently analyzing the sources of data they claim to have “analyzed.” So much for the three reporters’ investigatory skills.
Barberini is also absolutely right to question whether Neilson or Barba took credit for data analysis performed only by Carter-Oberstone, which would be tantamount to plagiarism — given that Barberini uncovered that neither Neilson nor Barba had placed public records requests to obtain the database Carter-Oberstone himself admitted is extremely difficult to come by. Although “MCO” may have obtained that database himself, it’s not clear how and where he obtained the database, whether he obtained it as a public record and had not obtained it as “work product” in his role as a Police Commissioner, or whether there were restrictions on whether “MCO” could share that database with others, such as journalists.
The three reporters appear peeved Barberini could trace this Hansel and Gretal saga so easily back to Max, and expose MCO as the likely source of their misguided articles perpetuating publication of leaked confidential information about an active investigation that appears to violate Officer Kosta’s due process rights.
— Patrick Monette-Shaw
Spookily, Carter-Oberstone’s name, the more I hear it, the more it comes to resemble an anagram of ‘Obfuscation.’
So the the Commission is supposed to provide oversight, right? But who oversees the overseer? This needs to be invested by an outside agency in order to clear MCO and to make sure confidentially is not broken. How can the community or the police trust this organization if there is no transparency?