Attorney Jami Tillotson will not be charged with any crime in connection with her brief detention by San Francisco Police at the Hall of Justice on January 27 — which was caught on video and widely circulated on the internet — and SF police chief Greg Suhr has apologized to her for "for any distress [she] suffered as a result of her detention." He stopped short of apologizing for the actions of Sgt. Brian Stansbury, the cop who was attempting to take possible lineup photos of two African American men and questioning them in the hallway of the courthouse without telling them what they were suspected of, or whether they were being detained.

In the video, Stansbury informed Tillotson that if she did not stop interfering with his questioning, he would arrest her. He then tells her that she is resisting arrest, despite the fact that she clearly is not. As Tillotson tells it, she had been in a holding chamber with another client when she heard that these two men, one of whom was a client of hers, were being questioned by police without the presence of an attorney.

As the Chronicle reports, Stansbury was "in court for a separate case when he heard that two suspects in a burglary were in the same building," and now Suhr says that Stansbury had "reasonable suspicion to take the pictures." The two men, allegedly, were wearing the same clothing that was described as worn by the burglary suspects.

As KQED reports, SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi remains outraged at the fact that police have not apologized and continue to say "that what they did was completely justified."

The ACLU got involved in this one, as should be expected, and legal director Alan Schlosser submitted a formal letter to the police commission this week, which seems to have prompted the announcement that Tillotson would not be getting charged.

Schlosser wrote:

The spectacle of two African American young men being targeted by the police within a public space inside a courthouse without their lawyer present, and then having that lawyer handcuffed and carted away for trying to advise them, raises the specter that other young men of color are being similarly targeted for intrusive investigations and photographing in the community where attorneys are not on the scene... The actions of police last Tuesday have an appearance of police overreaching and racial profiling.

...

The situation that Ms. Tillotson walked into in the corridor was anything but clear. The officers had not made it clear to her that the two men were being detained or what was the reasonable suspicion that would justify a detention. If the men were not being detained, they were free to walk away and to avoid being photographed. In this murky situation created by the police, Ms. Tillotson had every right, and even duty, to advise her client of his rights and to question Sergeant Stansbury as to his actions in targeting her client... Attorneys, like everyone else, have the right to challenge police.

The video, which you can watch again below and which now has 1.3 million views, spread far and wide in the wake of 2014's nationwide protests and attention to police impropriety and the treatment of African American males in particular. The New Orleans Times-Picayune just picked up the story in the last two days, and NPR weighed in last week on the idea of being "arrested for resisting arrest."

The ACLU is now calling for a full review of San Francisco Police Department policy regarding detentions by the police commission.

Previously: SF Public Defender Detained By Police After Trying To Intervene With Questioning Of Client