Updated 3:50 p.m.
The First Amendment Coalition filed a lawsuit Tuesday against San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the city's Police Department for allegedly refusing to release records and communications connected to the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi and the subsequent investigation into the journalist who was leaked a police report on Adachi's death.
The police report revealed that Adachi, who died suddenly on Feb. 22, was at a friend's apartment with a woman who was not his wife, and that officers found empty bottles of alcohol and marijuana gummies. Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody sold the police report, along with video footage he shot of the apartment where Adachi was found unresponsive, to several news outlets.
San Francisco police conducted a highly publicized raid of Carmody's home and office in May as part of an investigation into how he obtained the police report. They also conducted three searches of his phone records. First Amendment advocates argued those searches violated the California shield law, which protects journalists from revealing their sources and handing over unpublished information. Five San Francisco judges agreed, and ruled all of the search warrants invalid.
"There's so much to this story that we don't know, but that I'm confident is there in written communications, that would tell us who's to blame for this serial assault on journalistic freedoms," said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy organization. "It can't be that all of this is the result of a single sergeant in the police department swearing out five warrants. ... The Police Department and the mayor's office were involved. And so we want to know how they were involved. What were they saying to each other?"
