Four Baltimore police officers tied to a sexual assault probe in San Francisco remained suspended from work as of late April, pending an internal investigation.
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San Francisco police had sought to arrest two of the four Baltimore police officers tied to a local sex assault investigation, accusing the pair of raping a California woman while she was unconscious, newly obtained police records show.
The documents offer new details into the allegations, revealing an alcohol-soaked night that involved bar-hopping, conjoined hotel rooms and a web of sexual encounters.
The records also show why the San Francisco District Attorney’s Offices declined to file charges after police found probable cause to arrest the officers and send the case to prosecutors. The DA’s office, according to the records, found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a rape occurred, a threshold higher than probable cause.
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The Chronicle obtained the two police arrest warrant affidavits and a prosecutor memo through a public records request.
According to witness statements contained in the records, the four Baltimore officers were among a group of 8 to 10 male friends who were visiting San Francisco for a baseball trip in September 2024. Other men were described in records as three “DOD contractors” and a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton.
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But the names of all suspects and witnesses were redacted from the documents obtained by the Chronicle. The Baltimore Banner reported that all four police officers remained suspended from work as of late April, pending an internal investigation.
Due to the redactions, it’s unclear which two of the four were accused of committing assault. The two officers are identified in records only as “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2,” and the other officers and friends are described as witnesses.
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It all started on the evening of Sept. 7, 2024, when the victim, her sister and another female friend took an Uber from the Peninsula into San Francisco to meet up with a friend of the victim’s sister – a Baltimore officer identified in records as “Male Witness 2.”
The three women and the group of men initially met at a Columbus Avenue establishment in North Beach, before migrating to two more bars and ultimately back to the Hilton Hotel in the Financial District, where the men were staying.
The victim and other witnesses told police the victim had several drinks throughout the night, including shots of tequila. The victim said she began to black out at the first bar they went to, and that she didn’t remember anything about the rest of the night, the records show.
Her next memory was waking up around 6 a.m. in a bed at the Hilton, next to “Suspect 2,” according to police. The woman said she was wearing her skirt and a thong but her tube top and bra were pulled down to her stomach, according to the records.
The victim said the door between the two rooms was open at that time and she could see several of the men getting packed up to leave. The woman said she asked “who had sex with me?” but that everyone ignored her, police wrote in the affidavit.
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The victim’s sister, who had consensual sex with one of the witnesses in the same room, said her male friend later told her, “Your sis is wild. At least you didn’t have sex with two to three guys,” the records show.
The sister later told police she remembered waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a naked man on top of her sister, “thrusting his hips.” The sister said she was too intoxicated herself to check on the victim, and said she later noticed one or two men going in and out of the room before she fell back asleep, police said.
The victim’s sister convinced her to get a rape kit done, which turned up DNA evidence from the two suspects, according to police. “Suspect 1″’s DNA was found on the victim and “Suspect 2″’s DNA was found on the outside of her underwear, according to the records. There was no DNA found matching the other two officers, authorities said.
“Suspect 2” was the only one of the four officers to voluntarily speak to San Francisco police when they traveled to Baltimore. He initially denied having sex with the victim, but later said he did and maintained it was consensual and that she was alert, according to his statement in the police file. “Suspect 2” also told police that “Suspect 1” had sex with the victim, the report says.
When asked by police to rate how drunk the victim was on a scale from 1 to 10, “Suspect 2” said he recalled her being “8/10” while the group was at a bar, and said she had been dancing with both him and “Suspect 1.”
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When declining to file charges, San Francisco prosecutor Leigh Frazier cited security footage taken from the Hilton on the night of the incident and the morning after. The footage, she said, showed the victim “walking normally upon arrival and later smiling and conversing with (Suspect 1) as she left the next morning.”
For the other suspect, who told police he had sex with the victim but whose DNA was only found on the outside of her underwear, Frazier said there was no proven evidence of sexual intercourse.
Even if there was, Frazier wrote, prosecutors must show that the victim was unaware of the encounter and that the suspect knew that.
“Yet he described her as alert and responsive, and two witnesses corroborated that she initiated kissing earlier in the night,” Frazier said in her April 16 memo. “Although (the victim) reported a blackout and (her sister) described her as non-responsive at one moment, the lack of confirmed penetration and the lack of evidence of defendant knowledge leave substantial reasonable doubt.”
The victim, who recently spoke to the Baltimore Banner, said she was disappointed in the outcome of the case. “I feel like they took advantage of me,” she said.
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The Banner has identified the four suspended officers as Maj. Jai Etwaroo and officers Juan Rivas, Angel Villaronga and Jahmoor Acosta.
In an earlier released statement, officials with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said that “although the San Francisco Police had probable cause to submit an arrest warrant for review in this case, after careful review of all the evidence gathered, we do not believe we can meet our higher burden of proof.”