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Chief tells commission 8 officers suspended after review of biased text messages; two have resigned
Summary
Chief reported the department identified 14 members for review related to inflammatory text messages; 8 members are suspended and forwarded to the commission with termination recommendations, two among them have resigned; others face reassignment or short suspensions.
The San Francisco Police Department has suspended eight members and forwarded disciplinary cases to the Police Commission with the “singular recommendation of termination,” Chief Greg Suhr told commissioners on April 8.
In a public report the chief said investigators identified 14 members involved in various text‑messaging incidents. Of those, eight sent messages containing “extreme bias, racist and or homophobic content” the chief said; two of the eight have resigned and the remaining six were suspended pending commission discipline. The chief said two other officers were involved in single incidents that did not rise to the same level; those members were reassigned to non‑public duties and their cases were also forwarded to the commission. A further group of officers involved in lower‑level texting incidents will face administrative discipline up to 10 days’ suspension.
The chief apologized to the community during his update and said command staff and the Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) worked together to review volumes of information that led to the personnel actions. He also described department plans to require implicit‑bias training for captains and above and to pursue broader bias‑reduction training run by the Human Rights Commission.
Why it matters: The chief’s public account formalized personnel action and set the disciplinary process in motion through the commission; it also tied the personnel response to broader training and oversight steps.
What’s next: Several affected cases will be considered under the commission’s closed‑session disciplinary process; the chief said the department will continue to map training and policy responses and to coordinate with the OCC.
