S.F. HOUSING INVESTIGATION BROADENS

State Grand Jury Probes Drug Dealing At Projects

A state grand jury is investigating whether San Francisco Housing Authority
employees are using federal property as a base for drug trafficking,
authorities said yesterday.

The investigation is the latest piece of bad news for Housing Authority
Executive Director Ronnie Davis, who was appointed by Mayor Willie Brown in
1996 to fix long-standing problems at the agency. Davis himself is
embroiled in a federal grand jury investigation of questionable financial
dealings at the Cleveland housing authority, where he worked before coming
to San Francisco.

Sources close to the state grand jury investigation said the panel is
probing a narcotics conspiracy that allegedly operated in the Hunters Point
and Potrero Hill housing projects and elsewhere in the city.

One employee under investigation helps coordinate maintenance work at the
Hunters Point project, a law enforcement source said. The staff member is
one of three Housing Authority workers suspected of participating in or
assisting the drug trade and a target in the state and federal probe, the
source said.

The grand jury investigation grows out of an FBI probe called Operation
Hardstone, which already has resulted in the convictions of 18 suspects in
the Potrero Hill and Hunters Point projects.

Ron Sonenshine, a spokesman for the Housing Authority, said agency
officials had no information about the grand jury probe.

The new inquiry does not appear to be directly related to two federal
investigations involving the Housing Authority or Davis.

One of those is a federal grand jury investigation into an unusual
arrangement in which the head of the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing
Authority in Ohio was able to use agency money to pay the mortgage on her
condominium in suburban Washington, D.C. Davis was chief operations officer
of the Cleveland agency at the time and received a letter authorizing the
payments that bore the signatures of three agency directors. The three
denied seeing the letter.

Another inquiry is a federal civil rights investigation of Personal
Protective Services of San Mateo, the private security service that Davis
hired last year to guard four of the city's housing projects.

Davis declined a request for an interview yesterday but responded to
written questions.

He denied that he was the target of the Cleveland grand jury probe and also
denied involvement in any financial misconduct while he was at the agency.

He said he has not been summoned before the federal grand jury in Ohio and
has not been interviewed by investigators. An FBI agent in San Francisco
has asked to talk to him about the Cleveland probe, but no interview has
been scheduled yet, he said.

Davis said he has not been contacted by investigators assigned to the civil
rights investigation of Personal Protective Services and has no information
about the probe.

He said the company had been hired through normal agency procedures, and
the Housing Authority is not reconsidering the contract in light of the
investigation.

OFFICIALS CLOSE RANKS

Despite the growing number of agencies looking into alleged misconduct at
the San Francisco Housing Authority, city officials closed ranks around
Davis yesterday.

Brown, who appointed Davis to run the agency a year after he engineered the
ouster of the authority commission, said he is unimpressed by the fact that
various agencies are looking into the Housing Authority or its director.

``Investigations are investigations,'' Brown said. ``Wait for the events to
unfold and then write about them.''

The civil rights inquiry is being conducted by the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. attorney's office and the San
Francisco Police Department and district attorney.

It began after a Personal Protective Services guard allegedly clubbed an
unarmed man who was already in police custody last year. The incident is
one of five in which employees of the firm have been accused of violating
the civil rights of citizens since starting patrols at the North Beach,
Alemany, Valencia Gardens and West Side Courts projects.

In three of the incidents, guards allegedly clubbed or manhandled victims.
In one, guards are accused of planting drugs in a public housing tenant's
mailbox in order to have her evicted. In another, a guard is accused of
firing two shots at a moving automobile.

By law, the guards are simply supposed to monitor the projects and report
any crimes to police. They have no greater arrest power than any other
citizen. They can carry guns and are allowed to fire in self-defense.

LAWYER DECLINES COMMENT

Alicia Rockwell, the lawyer who represents Personal Protective Services,
declined to comment on the investigation and said she had advised the
company's president, Stan Teets, not to talk to the press.

The investigation began when Jahi Johnson, 25, was hit with a flashlight by
one of the private guards after he was subdued by police April 10, 1997, at
15th and Valencia streets.

According to a police report, guard Daniel Waymon Owens was present when
two officers arrested Johnson for fighting.

``As I was holding Johnson, Owens came up and struck him in the lower head
or neck area with a black metal flashlight two times,'' one of the officers
wrote in the report. ``I told Owens to `back off' from Johnson, which he
did.''

No charges were lodged as a result of the scuffle, but Johnson sued the
company in San Francisco Superior Court asking unspecified damages.

Court records and police reports describe four other incidents involving
employees of Personal Protective Services:

- -- Guard Frank Tisdale fired two rounds at a fleeing motorist near the
Alice Griffith projects on June 11, according to San Francisco police
reports. Tisdale said the driver of vehicle, Ronnie Whittenberg, was under
a court order to stay away from the project, but did not obey Tisdale's
order to stop and tried to run him down. Whittenberg denied the guard's
account.

- -- Guards Jose Villagomez and Marcelino Saldana are awaiting trial on
charges of beating a man with a nightstick and an umbrella in a San
Francisco convenience market February 20. Each has been charged with
assault with a deadly weapon.

Their alleged victim, Richard Brooks, said the guards started the fight by
taunting him about wearing yellow and bumping him. The guards maintain that
Brooks verbally abused them, spat in Saldana's face and began fighting when
Saldana pushed him away. Both have pleaded not guilty.

- -- Guard Scott Wayne Willie is being sued by a woman named Willie Ann
Townshend, who says Willie grabbed and stomped her, twisted her arm and
placed her in handcuffs during a confrontation at Valencia Gardens on
February 1. In a response filed in Superior Court, attorneys for Personal
Protective Services deny Townshend's allegations.

- -- Guards Michael Escobar, Eric Eierman and Jerry Mogannom have been sued
by a woman named Nea Porter, who says they planted drugs in her mailbox in
April 1997 to force her eviction from Valencia Gardens. In papers filed by
Personal Protective Services, the guards deny Porter's allegation.

GUARDS WIN PRAISE

Housing Authority officials said they are pleased with Personal Protective
Services and believe the firm has played an important role in reducing
crime in the projects.

Sulu Palega, president of the Housing Authority's board of directors, said
the misconduct allegations against the guards are being generated by people
who are criminals themselves.

``The complaints I've gotten are from people who are dirty and who are
involved in some of the unwanted activity that the guards were hired to
stop,'' he said.

Palega said some of the guards may have been overly aggressive, but he
insisted that they have performed a public service.

``Maybe some of them are out of whack, but we need security guards who are
able to protect people and ensure their safety,'' he said. ``The `Death
Valley' thing (in the projects) is over. We are trying to put an end to
that.''

Davis received a vote of confidence yesterday from three members of the
Board of Supervisors. One of them, Supervisor Sue Bierman, said, ``He has
done some really dramatic things for the people in public housing. . . . He
has shown tremendous respect for people who live in public housing. I hope
(the investigators) go slow on this.''

1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A1