{"id":64637,"date":"2025-11-22T02:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64637\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T02:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:15:09","slug":"s-f-supervisors-furious-after-alleged-mass-strip-search-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64637\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. supervisors furious after alleged mass strip search in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors called for action and accountability on Friday after Mission Local reported that women held in a San Francisco jail were allegedly forced to undress<\/a> in front of each other while sheriff\u2019s deputies watched and filmed them with their body-worn cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Late Thursday afternoon, 17 women filed a claim with the city saying that deputies violated multiple laws and policies in May when they strip searched them en masse while male deputies were present.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gender-based violence and an abuse of human rights,\u201d said District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder. \u201cIt should be condemned by every elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the mayor\u2019s office said they could not comment given the pending litigation against the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supervisor Shamann Walton said his colleagues would hold a hearing on this and other incidents of deputy misconduct, but he was not yet sure when. Last month, Mission Local reported that a deputy allegedly started a physical fight<\/a> with a 27-year-old who was incarcerated at the county jail in San Bruno, and that another deputy allegedly engaged in \u201csexual misconduct\u201d<\/a> with a transgender woman in a jail bathroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supervisor Myrna Melgar called for a \u201cwritten formal resolution to ensure that this never happens again.\u201d The sheriff, she said, could give the Board of Supervisors a plan, with deadlines, to create culture change in the department. She suggested professional development and more robust training of deputies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be accountability, both of the leadership and the people who participated in this,\u201d Melgar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melgar pointed out that San Francisco taxpayers would bear the consequences of the women\u2019s brewing lawsuit is successful. \u201cThese women are gonna sue,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to win. We\u2019re going to end up paying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a budget deficit,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to pay because these jerks think that this kind of behavior is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a social media post shortly after Mission Local\u2019s story<\/a> was published, Walton called for more funding for independent oversight of the sheriff\u2019s department to prevent incidents like the alleged May search.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not isolated incidents,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is a system that allows abuse to go unchecked because the offices responsible for accountability do not have the staff or resources they need to do their job.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2020, San Francisco voted to create an independent oversight board that could investigate reports of deputy misconduct and poor conditions in the city\u2019s jails. Walton has been a staunch advocate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have never gotten the money needed from the mayor\u2019s office to fully staff the sheriff\u2019s department oversight board,\u201d Walton said in an interview. \u201cThis is why we continue to see instances of misconduct like this in our jails, because the last two mayors have not wanted to fund the voters\u2019 will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Department Oversight Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August, a task force designed to cull city commissions recommended that the Sheriff\u2019s Department Oversight Board be eliminated<\/a>. The task force recommended that the Department of Police Accountability, another law enforcement watchdog, absorb its responsibilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Department of Police Accountability wrote that it did not initiate an investigation into the alleged May search because a complaint from the public defender\u2019s office about the incident \u201craised matters outside\u201d the Department of Police Accountability\u2019s agreement with the sheriff\u2019s department. The department did not elaborate further on the specifics of the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a woman and a mother of three girls,\u201d Melgar said, she was \u201cnauseated\u201d when she read the allegations in Mission Local\u2019s article.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While she had ideas for specific actions the sheriff\u2019s department could take, she said that, \u201con a human level,\u201d the reported May search was indicative of an \u201canti-female culture\u201d within the sheriff\u2019s department that could not be easily eliminated with more supervision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a workplace where people would think that it was okay to do strip searches of women naked in front of a bunch of guys who are making fun of them and threatening them with putting it on social media while they\u2019re filming,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is not okay in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organizers rallying<\/p>\n

In response to news of the alleged mass strip search, organizations including the Young Women\u2019s Freedom Center and Sister Warriors Freedom coalition are planning a rally Monday at 9 a.m. outside the county jail at 425 Seventh St.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They will \u201cdemand that all deputies involved be suspended and removed from the jail until a full, independent investigation is completed,\u201d according to a text message shared by organizers.<\/p>\n

They want an \u201cacknowledgement of the abuse\u201d and for offending deputies to step down, said Julia Arroyo, the executive director of the Young Women\u2019s Freedom Center. Arroyo pointed out that many of the women inside the jail awaiting trial had not been convicted of crimes.<\/p>\n

Deputies, she said, are tasked with ensuring their safety. Searches, she said, are supposed to follow \u201creally strict guidelines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arroyo, who was formerly incarcerated, said that the May incident was part of a decades-long pattern of abuse in the jail. She said other formerly incarcerated women will also speak about their experiences at the Monday rally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another goal of the demonstration, she added, was to ensure that women and transgender people in custody \u201cknow that we hear them and are working to ensure their protection on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors called for action and accountability on Friday after Mission Local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[38812,20812,101,103,102,9200,104,106,105,38813],"class_list":["post-64637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-district-7","tag-district-9","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-sheriffs-office","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sheriffs-department-oversight-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}