When speaking to another DA staffer, one assistant district attorney on the Samayoa case said he was “not looking for jail time, but rather ‘to change the way SFPD does things or policy or procedures,'” Jenkins wrote to Bonta.
But to April Green, aunt of Keita O’Neil, and to her attorney, Brian Ford, Jenkins’ letter to Bonta demonstrates something they’ve suspected all along — Jenkins put more resources into investigating Boudin than into prosecuting Samayoa.
They also asked Bonta to take over the case, in a letter sent at roughly the same time as Jenkins’.
“I think what’s written in her letter confirms the conflict we’re complaining about,” Ford told KQED. “That she’s more interested in investigating Chesa Boudin than pursuing a prosecution, and is mishandling the prosecution, against the officer who murdered [Green’s] nephew.”
In Ford’s letter to Bonta, the attorney claimed Jenkins admitted to Ford that her office “may be conflicted” in its investigation.
And as for the statements made by assistant district attorneys about their reasons for pursuing a case, Ford wrote, “The opinions of the D.A. Inspectors are not ‘evidence,’ and they are not relevant, nor are they exculpatory,” meaning they do not prove innocence.
Separate from the criminal case, O’Neil’s family settled a civil lawsuit against the city for $2.5 million. Boudin’s charges against Samayoa include voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, assault by an executive officer, assault with a semi-automatic firearm and negligent discharge of a firearm.
Green and Jenkins have had a rocky relationship. Green campaigned against Boudin’s recall as a show of gratitude for him taking up the case against the officer who killed her nephew. And when Jenkins took office, Green was quick to sound the alarm when she sensed — from meetings with Jenkins — that the case against Samayoa would be dismissed.
During those meetings, Ford wrote in his letter to Bonta, Jenkins and her staffer Darby Williams had no patience for Green.
“In almost every meeting Ms. Green has had with Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Williams, she is interrupted, spoken and shouted over, spoken down to, and lied to,” Ford wrote.
Both letters to Bonta — from Jenkins and from Green — were dated Feb. 8, and were provided to KQED by Ford. Both letters also cite Assembly Bill 1506, which went into effect in July 2021, placing all incidents of an officer-involved shooting resulting in the death of an unarmed person within the purview of the California Department of Justice.
Green learned of Jenkins’ decision to dismiss the case against the officer who killed her nephew Thursday, in a Zoom call with Jenkins.
Green said that, during the call, “I got tired of her running her lip.”
“I told her, ‘The God I serve is real. And I pray you’re doing this spiritually. Because I’m going to fight you. And don’t you ever forget it. And he’s going to hold you accountable. Because all that blood from killing and murders you’re justifying from police are going to be on your head,'” Green said.
The next hearing in the case against Samayoa is March 1.
