Activists with the group Anti Police-Terror Project gathered outside District Attorney George Gascon’s office at 850 Bryant Street last week to demand a public commitment to prosecute any SFPD officers who may have been involved in the statuary rape of a minor at the center of the much-publicized sex-trafficking scandal that currently encompasses four counties.
A KQED analysis of current and former SFPD officers’ Facebook accounts of the now 18-year old woman who goes by the alias Celeste Guap shows that she was connected to dozens of people affiliated with the department. [Guap’s mother is a 911 dispatcher and  therefore she knows a lot of police officers. Ms. Guap’s connections on Facebook do not necessarily mean those officers were involved in the case]
The revelations that shook the Oakland Police Department are currently being investigated by the SFPD. Guap has claimed to have had sex with SFPD officers, whom she alleges knew she worked in the sex trade.
While the San Francisco Police Department cited an open ongoing investigation, the District Attorney’s Office has not yet looked into the matter. Alex Bastian, assistant district attorney, said he welcomed any additional evidence that would demonstrate that the alleged statuary rape occurred within the jurisdiction of San Francisco. “If there’s some information that reveals that the crime occurred in San Francisco as opposed to Alameda or CoCo County, if anyone has any information I am glad to take that from you,” Bastian said while acknowledging that he wasn’t aware of the letter that was dropped in, stamped as received on Thursday for the District Attorney.
Activist and comedienne Yayne Abeba wasn’t satisfied by the response from the DA’s office. “That wasn’t an acceptable response this kind of shows that the DA’s Office is not taking this seriously. We delivered the letter (asking for public commitment) on Thursday so it shouldn’t take them by surprise. We had the letter stamped and validated and told them we were going to pick it up on Tuesday.”
Abeba said that the DA’s office should be doing more to investigate the issue. “The fact is that three police officers have been implicated and she (Guap) said that she has done drugs in a squad car with a San Francisco Police Officer and that she had sex with the officer in his squad car.”
Abeba and APTP argued that there’s a double standard when it comes to police officers allegedly committing a crime. In their letter to the DA the group alleges that “Those who perpetrated violence and those who looked the other way or even helped cover it up – including Mayor Ed Lee – need to face consequences for the irreparable harm they have inflicted on members of our community.” The letter goes on to demand a public commitment to prosecute all sworn officers who committed or had “peripheral involvement” in crimes or the conspiracy to cover up those crimes. The group asks the DA office to investigate with the intent of pressing charges and jailing criminal cops — and enumerate the reasons should the DA chose not to file charges for any officers that have already been cleared. They then go on to provide a list of charges that the DA could pursue:
Charges to pursue include but are not limited to:
California Penal Code:
52.1 Police brutality and coercion
186 California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (gang enhancement)
236.1 False imprisonment/human trafficking of a minor
261.5 Statutory rape
266i Pimping and Pandering
182 Conspiracy
118.1 Perjury
Weapon enhancements for all of the aboveFederal law:
Criminal street gangs (18 U.S.C. 521)
Coercion And Enticement of a Minor (18 U.S.C. 2422)
Perjury (18 U.S.C. 1621)
Activist and San Francisco resident Adrienne Fong said that police officers should be held to a higher standard so that community can continue to trust the “These are police officers that people are suppose to be trust in the community and all this is doing is sending am message to not trust the police. Specially if you are a woman and a woman of color?,” Fong asked.
Sgt. Yulanda Williams is president of Officers for Justice, a group that has pushed for stronger diversity in the Police Department for four decades. She said that officers should not be ostracized before the investigation is complete “What we do know is that the one of the officers who had known her (Guap) was originally from the OPD. Officers are held to a higher standard than citizens are so this matter is currently being investigated.”
Williams also pointed out that officers who may have been on Guap’s social media weren’t necessarily involved in a relationship “We have  to look at the totality of the situation, there are many questions.”
The San Francisco Police Department’s investigation into the matter is still ongoing. APTP has issued similar letters to DA’s offices in all four counties.
