SFPD Officer Suspended for Illegally Searching Man Who Parked in a Red Zone

On January 24, 2019, around 11 a.m., Ibrahim Nimer Shiheiber pulled up to the curb in front of a sandwich shop in the Inner Sunset to grab a Philly cheesesteak for lunch. He parked in a red zone with his tail end blocking a fire hydrant. Shiheiber put his hazards on and headed toward the shop.

At that moment, an SFPD cruiser pulled up and two officers jumped out. Officer Hernandez and a female officer named Jacqueline Hernandez, no relation, approached the then-30-year-old and turned on their body cameras.

“You're detained, buddy,” Hernandez told Shiheiber in the footage.

“For what? Why are you guys just bothering me?” Shiheiber asked.

The officers said his car was illegally parked, and Shiheiber argued with them briefly about whether or not he was “stopped” or “parked,” but said he’d move his car. They told Shiheiber he could not move his car because he was being detained, and Hernandez began to pull on his blue latex gloves.

“Here’s my ID, and that’s all that I’m giving you,” Shiheiber said, passing the officer his identification. “You have no right to touch me.”

“Yes, I do,” Hernandez said.

Shiheiber continued to insist that the officers did not have the right to touch him, even as they forcibly grabbed him, took him to the ground and handcuffed him.

“I was scared,” Shiheiber said in a recent interview. “You have no options. If my fight-and-flight instinct kicks in, and I try to defend myself, they’re going to say I’m resisting. And if I don’t try to defend myself, I don’t know what this guy’s going to do.”

The officers ultimately released Shiheiber with a citation. Shiheiber said his shirt was torn, his face and side were scraped up and his hip hurt from where an officer held him down.

“I decided it was time that I needed to take action,” he said.

First, Shiheiber walked into the police station at 850 Bryant Street and told the desk officer he wanted to “file an assault charge” against a police officer.

“We don’t do that here,” she told him, Shiheiber, now 33, recalled.

She directed him to the Third Street police station. There an officer told him to go back to Bryant Street. Finally, Shiheiber said a Black female officer whispered to him where he needed to go: the Department of Police Accountability.

An SFPD spokesperson declined to comment for this story, saying in an email, “Because this involves a personnel disciplinary matter, we are unable to provide public comments.”

Hernandez's lawyer Christopher Shea said the discipline his client later received was "unwarranted" and that an internal investigation into the incident by the department found "he acted within his discretion and committed no misconduct."

However, unlike most police accountability systems across the state, which rely on officers inside the department to investigate civilian complaints, San Francisco also has an investigative body entirely independent of the police department. The DPA receives complaints from people like Shiheiber, investigates and makes findings, which it passes along to the police chief or, in more serious cases, the San Francisco Police Commission for disposition.

“If we recommend that an officer be sustained for misconduct and we recommend less than 10 days' suspension, the chief can say yes or no,” explained Stephanie Wargo-Wilson, the DPA attorney who handled Shiheiber’s complaint. “If we recommend an 11-day suspension or more, then that case is eligible to go to the police commission.”

The San Francisco Police Commission also is unusual in that it has the authority to discipline officers. Most civilian oversight bodies can recommend disciplinary action, but only the chief or the sheriff have the power to impose it.

Shiheiber said he was “treated very respectfully” at the DPA. Investigators took photos of his injuries, listened to his story, and opened a case.

In November of 2019, the DPA sent its findings to Police Chief Bill Scott.

“Officer Brett Hernandez escalated a parking violation to an intrusive detention, pat search, and take down that caused [redacted] pain. He could have just as easily left a ticket on the car,” the report found.

The DPA also found that Hernandez violated Shiheiber’s Fourth Amendment rights, which protect the public from unreasonable searches and seizures. Investigators also did not find Hernandez’s justification for the search believable.
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