Turns out the SF Chron really meant it when they said they'd be doing a week-long special on the use of excessive force by the SFPD. Here's a summary for today.

See that guy to your left? That's Officer Anthony Nelson in mid-swing, breaking up the 2003 anti-war rallies. He didn't just break up a rally, he broke up the arm of a protestor as well. Bummer for him and the city that the woman was a court reporter who earned about $250,000/year. Nelson then falsified a police report, saying that she had lunged at him with a pole and that he was in fear for his safety. Nelson almost got away with it, until another protestor produced video footage showing that the protestor, Linda Vaccarello, was carrying a piece of posterboard, with no pole, was trying to pull someone out of the way of his baton when she got hit, and that she shrieked "you broke my arm!" after he hit her. Nelson was then fired, and the city paid out $835,000. There's video footage online as well. Other stories include: pepper spray at the ball park, two broken teeth in the transport van, and a road rage incident with an off-duty cop.

Here's the situation on why we don't have a database tracking these reports, complete with stats. From 1996-2003, one SF cop accrued 26 use of force citizen complains. By contrast, in San Jose for the same time period, the cop with the most complaints had four.

And in fallout news, Heather Fong says the reason why we have so many excessive use of force allegations is that officers overreport. And the oft-quoted Peter Ragone, Newsom's press secretary, says that Newsom never said he wasn't available for interviews in the seven emails he was sent by the Chron. Notably, however, Ragone doesn't seem to say that Newsom's available for interviews now on the subject either.

Tune in tomorrow, for more police brutality! Entire series is available here.