San Francisco, California: Public Defender Releases Video of Scooter Pursuit That Killed Edwin Adams and Files Watchdog Complaint

The San Francisco Public Defender's Office released surveillance footage on Thursday, Nov. 12, that it says shows police officers in unmarked vehicles pursuing Edwin Adams, 56, as he rode an electric scooter near Eighth and Mission streets on Oct. 12, and an officer tackling him seconds before he struck a bus shelter pole and suffered the injuries that killed him. The office also filed a formal complaint with the Department of Police Accountability, the city's police watchdog agency, asking it to investigate the pursuit in full and discipline the officers involved.

What the first police account left out

In its first public account, the San Francisco Police Department said Adams "collided with a street fixture and suffered injury" while officers tried to arrest him on a warrant. The statement did not mention a chase by two unmarked vehicles, an attempt to cut him off, or any physical contact by an officer. Witnesses told Mission Local and the San Francisco Chronicle in October that a man who appeared to be a plainclothes officer stepped out of a gray sedan that had been following Adams and tackled him off the scooter and into the bus shelter, where his head hit a metal pole. Adams later died at a hospital. The department has not identified the officers involved and has not released body camera footage or the police report.

A warrant over an ankle monitor

The warrant the officers were acting on was a sheriff's affidavit warrant issued on Oct. 10 over an allegation that Adams had not properly charged the electronic ankle monitor he wore while facing nonviolent drug charges, the Public Defender's Office said. His lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Meenha Lee, said she learned of the warrant only after his death. The office said it has repeatedly asked the Sheriff's Department, which runs the monitoring program and issues these warrants, to notify it when one is issued against a client. The department notifies prosecutors promptly but has refused to notify defense lawyers, the office said. "Had our office been notified of the sheriff warrant, we could have helped him resolve the issue," Lee said.

Three claims in the complaint

The complaint asks the watchdog agency to investigate three claims. The first is that the pursuit broke department rules, which limit vehicle pursuits to cases where officers have at least reasonable suspicion that a felony or a violent misdemeanor has occurred. The second is that tackling a man off a moving scooter, while he wore no helmet, was excessive force. The third is that the department's first public statement was dishonest because it left out the police actions that came right before the collision. "Police chose to pursue Mr. Adams in multiple unmarked vehicles and then violently tackle him from his scooter," said Zac Dillon, a senior policy analyst with the office's integrity team. Public Defender Mano Raju said police should not put lives at risk over matters that could be resolved without a dangerous pursuit. The district attorney's office has opened its own independent investigation into the use of force.