Newly-installed San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has dropped charges against a man whom police officers shot several times last month after he allegedly struck one of them with a glass vodka bottle, ran away, then attacked again.
Rank-and-file officers are reportedly furious, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle reports (original link):
District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a former public defender whose election was opposed by the police union, decided not to pursue criminal charges against Jamaica Hampton, who was shot after he allegedly attacked two officers with a glass vodka bottle in the Mission District in December.
The charges were pulled “without prejudice,” which means they can be refiled at Boudin’s discretion.
“The District Attorney has informed me that at this time he will withdraw charges against the suspect,” Police Chief Bill Scott wrote to his officers Friday. “The DA indicated that this withdrawal is not a dismissal of the case. This unprovoked attack was a violent, criminal act. I want you to know that we remain committed to working with the DA to see that justice is done in this case for our officers.”
Boudin, as Breitbart News and others have reported, is the son of two activists in the Weather Underground, which the FBI calls a domestic terrorist organization, who were getaway drivers in a 1981 armored car heist that led to the deaths of two police officers and a guard, the UK Guardian recalled.
The Weather Underground came to prominence again in 2008 during the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, when opponents noted that he once enjoyed close political ties to former Weather Underground activist Bill Ayers.
Boudin was elected last year after promising not to prosecute “quality-of-life” crimes like public urination, in a city that is struggling to deal with the problem of public urination and defecation by a growing homeless population.
Boudin has already fired several experienced anti-gang prosecutors without explanation in his first weeks on the job.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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