WATCHDOGS SAY COP ACTED WRONG

Panel urges charges in pepper-sprayed suspect's death

A citizens police watchdog group said the captain who heads the Mission
District precinct should be charged with neglect and improper conduct in
the case of a Millbrae man who died two years ago after being doused with
pepper spray.

The recommended charges by the Office of Citizen Complaints named Capt.
Gregory Suhr, who was a lieutenant at the time of the April 6, 1996
incident and was in charge of the officers involved.

One other officer may also have been recommended for charges but neither
the Police Department nor OCC would confirm that.

Chief Fred Lau confirmed Wednesday that the OCC had notified the
department's management control division of the recommendation against
Suhr.

The division will conduct its own investigation, which could take 30 to 60
days, then decide whether to deal with the case on the chief's level, send
it to the Police Commission or return it to the OCC, which, in effect,
would mean it rejected the recommendation.

"It is time for the Police Commission to move forward and act in accordance
with their own rules," said Bruce Kapsack, the attorney representing the
family of Mark Garcia, who died 23 hours after being subdued and doused
with pepper spray.

Garcia, a drug counselor, was arrested when he was found standing in the
middle of Cesar Chavez Street near Folsom Street, naked from the waist down
and shouting incoherently at passing cars.

Police under Suhr's command said they sprayed him with pepper spray after
he attacked an officer with a crack pipe. The 41-year-old, 317-pound Garcia
later had a heart attack while tied face down in the back of a police van.
The coroner said Garcia died of acute cocaine poisoning, not pepper spray.
The district attorney cleared police of criminal wrongdoing.

1998 San Francisco Examiner

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)