Cops Raid Journalist's Home In Shakedown Effort

Police raided the home and office of a freelance journalist Friday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a leaked confidential police report containing salacious details about the death of late Public Defender Jeff Adachi.

Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody told the San Francisco Examiner that his home and office were raided by police and FBI agents because he had obtained a copy of the police report, and sold information from that report to the press following Adachi’s death on February 22.

The leak drew wide condemnation and prompted members of the Board of Supervisors to call for the police department to investigate and hold accountable the source of it within the department.

Two weeks prior, Carmody said that he was interviewed by police officers about where he obtained his information, but refused to disclose his source. Today, Carmody said that police and FBI agents executed a search warrant on his Richmond District home and Western Addition office.

They confiscated his cell phones, computers and a copy of the police report from within his office safe.

Jeff Adachi

“They have completely shut down my business,” said Carmody, who has operated as an independent stringer for Bay Area and national television stations, including Fox News, CNBC and CBS Evening news.

Carmody accused police of “intimidation” to “make me break my [journalistic] ethics.”

A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson defended their action in a statement Friday, saying that the warrant was granted by a judge and the raid was “part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report.”

“Today’s actions are one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report,” the statement read.

“They were in the process of breaking my gate down at which time I woke up and let them in,” said Carmody, adding that the authorities entered his home with guns drawn and searched “my entire house from attic to garage.”

Carmody said that he was detained in handcuffs for more than seven hours and asked to be released several times, but that authorities refused his request. He said he remained in handcuffs as police brought him along with them to his Western Addition office, where they found the police report in a safe.

At the heart of the dispute is a report that included photographs and details about what happened at the Telegraph Hill apartment where Adachi lost consciousness on Feb. 22 after spending the day with a female companion.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the Police Department drew sharp reprimands from city politicians after the report showed up on television newscasts and in print only hours after Adachi, 59, collapsed and later died. It rattled City Hall, creating a new drama that overtook the news of Adachi’s death. The public defender was a key figure for local progressives but also a vocal critic of the police, leading some to say the report’s unauthorized release was politically motivated.

Police immediately started a probe, which led investigators to freelance videographer Bryan Carmody, who says he received the report on Adachi’s death from an unidentified source inside the Police Department. He sold it to three television news stations, but wouldn’t identify them.