Outside look at sheriff cases of misconduct

The San Francisco Sheriff ’s Department will no longer conduct internal investigations of deputy misconduct, ceding that authority to an outside agency in an effort to increase transparency and inspire public trust.

Investigations into certain serious misconduct cases — including deaths of jail inmates, excessive force complaints and allegations of sexual assault — will now be handled by the Department of Police Accountability, a civilian oversight agency that investigates complaints against San Francisco police officers.

City officials will announce Monday that the two departments have signed an agreement spelling out the boundaries of the Police Accountability Department’s oversight. The agreement also

requires monthly and quarterly reports updating the public on the status of the investigations and any disciplinary actions taken. The Sheriff ’s Department will retain its discretion to discipline deputies.

The deal formalizes a relationship between the two departments that has been developing for months. Paul Henderson, executive director of the Department of Police Accountability, said the agency was proud to be tasked with conducting the investigations.

“We want to make sure that people trust what we’re doing, so we’ve decided to move these cases to the Department of Police Accountability,” Sheriff Vicki Hennessy said. The public’s skepticism of internal law enforcement investigations lingers, she added, even when they’re conducted thoroughly and aboveboard.

The shift follows an unsettling spike in misconduct investigations within the Sheriff ’s Department last year. The department opened 119 internal investigations against sworn members in 2018, more than twice the 58 opened the prior year, according to statistics Hennessy released.

A rash of misconduct scandals in recent years led to calls from some city officials for greater oversight of the department.

In April, Hennessy asked the FBI to investigate allegations that a deputy, Alex Jayson, punched an inmate returning to his cell at County Jail No. 5 in San Bruno. The FBI declined to file charges against the deputy, Hennessy said, but the case has been transferred to the Department of Police Accountability.

Hennessy began a sweeping probe into other claims that deputies beat jail inmates and subjected them to degrading strip searches. Saying she was “deeply disturbed” by the claims, Hennessy announced in March that she would move that investigation over to police accountability officials as well to try to ensure “trust and transparency in my agency.” The claims of beatings and strip searches also spurred Hennessy to audit how the Sheriff ’s Department investigates alleged misconduct.

In February, the district attorney’s office dropped charges against three deputies accused of arranging gladiatorstyle battles between inmates after learning that the Sheriff ’s Department mishandled the internal investigation.

On top of providing external oversight, the Department of Police Accountability has a deeper bench of resources to draw on for misconduct probes. The Sheriff's Department’s internal investigations team consists of eight people, Hennessy said, compared with the dozens of personnel available at the Police Accountability Department. The sheriff's investigators will focus more on smaller complaints and infractions, like alleged procedure violations or misconduct that occurs while a deputy is offduty.

“This agreement ensures important public oversight of investigations in cases of potential misconduct and will help our residents feel confident that complaints are heard and properly handled,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa