Police, DA Chesa Boudin Battle Over Withdrawal Of Charges Against Attack Suspect

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Publish Date:
January 28, 2020
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San Francisco Chronicle
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Summary

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s decision to withdraw criminal charges last week against a man who was shot by police after allegedly attacking officers with a bottle has inflamed a simmering conflict between the city’s new progressive prosecutor and the law enforcement groups that opposed his election.

The city’s police union accused Boudin — a former public defender — of giving a “green light” to criminals to attack police, and on Monday called on the federal government to prosecute Jamaica Hampton, the 24-year-old man accused in the Dec. 7 attack in the Mission District. Hampton remains hospitalized and recently had his leg amputated after being shot three times, officials said.

Robert Weisberg, director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, noted the parallel investigations in the case, but said, “It’s not clear that one charge on one side implicates the other.”

“You have two potential criminal cases here and in theory they both could be innocent and they both could be guilty,” Weisberg said. “Assuming it was a tactical decision by Boudin, for whatever reason, you have to balance that against the difficulties he started with in terms of his relationship with the police.”

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