We're taking a break from our usual SF Chronicle mockery for this irony-free moment: Well done! The Chron splashes the results of its years-long investigation into claims of police brutality in the SFPD on page A1 of today's Sunday papers, and it does not look good. Yow. The Chron put together a database of all the reported use-of-force incidents throughout the city from 1996-2004 (something the SFPD itself has never gotten around to doing), and discovered that 100 officers (about 5% of the force) constitute 25% of the complaints. San Francisco has more brutality claims filed against it than Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Seattle combined -- 535 in 2003, for example, as opposed to 91 in Oakland, 83 in San Jose, 62 in San Diego, and 167 in Seattle. To be fair, SF has more officers than any of those other cities do, but the numbers are still out of proportion from what you'd expect.

The Chron notes that police officers have a hard job, and that everyone agrees that an officer will have to use force occasionally to quell people resisting arrest. The issue here, though, are officers like the one who broke the arm of an anti-war protestor (and then falsely claimed she was threatening him), off-duty officers who attack motorists honking at them when they take too long at an intersection, and of course, the famous Fajitagate incident. We probably all also agree that something's gotta be done about that too.

What's more, Mayor Gavin Newsom -- the guy who hasn't met an interviewer he wouldn't talk to, who'd happily agree to be interviewed by your fourth-grader's school newsletter committee if you asked -- repeatedly refused to comment for the article. The Chron did discover, however, that the SFPD had lodged a complaint against it for discussing this article in the context of a meeting about police protection for possible union strikes -- and that the police department was planning a huge positive PR blitz to "counterbalance" this article once it came out. Well, no Newsom went apes**t over that Bayview video -- gotta protect the rep! (is the Chron's also working on a story about MUNI corruption too? Maybe that would explain the weird cable car thing from last month.)

More details from the article after the jump.

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