By now, many of you have seen the shocking video of a lawyer being hauled off in handcuffs for doing what is generally accepted to be “her job.” If you haven’t seen this story that really started making the rounds in earnest overnight, then here are the basics: A veteran Assistant Public Defender in San Francisco, Jami Tillotson, was in a courtroom when she learned that another of her clients was being questioned in the hallway by a platoon of officers led by a plainclothes officer, Sergeant Inspector Brian Stansbury. When Tillotson intervened to point out that the police can’t go around questioning a guy that they know to be represented outside the presence of his lawyer, she was arrested.

For “resisting arrest,” even though her response to being threatened with arrest was “please do,” followed by immediate submission. If “please do” has become the new standard for resisting, we can set the Doomsday clock to 1 minute to 1984.

The whole video is available here:

The only thing that can be said in defense of the police is that courts probably wouldn’t balk at merely taking pictures of someone outside the presence of counsel. But if you believe this cop was only planning to take pictures of these guys (only one of whom was represented by Tillotson), then please let me know the next time you want to play poker. Indeed, as Public Defender Jeff Adachi pointed out in his press conference denouncing the arrest, these dudes were already defendants in another matter — it’s why they were in the courthouse in the first place — so the police already had a bevy of identifying photographs. In case the pretext wasn’t obvious enough, the cop’s taking pictures with his goddamned smartphone! Super official.

And, of course, witnesses report that Inspector Stansbury did go ahead and ask questions after the guy’s lawyer gets led away. There’s the subtlety of the job right there: do something that won’t raise the ire of a court to get a foot in the door, use that to intimidate, then get the target to start volunteering information in a vain effort to make the intimidation end. Standard procedure. Tillotson knew what was going down and got chained to a wall for an hour for her efforts.

That’s right, she got chained to a wall.

In a press release, Adachi called the arrest ‘outrageous’ and said after Tillotson was lead away she was handcuffed to a wall in a holding cell for approximately an hour.

I would quote the press release directly, except the SF Public Defender website is currently spitting out a “403 – Forbidden Error.”

As an aside, would it surprise you to learn that the officer in question has already had a federal civil rights lawsuit brought against him? I knew it wouldn’t. But, yes, Inspector Stansbury was accused of racial profiling by another cop after Stansbury stopped and arrested the African-American off-duty officer. And now he’s confronting black defendants in the hallway of the courthouse to declare them “persons of interest” in vague “other crimes.” Infer from this what you will.

In any event, Tillotson was ultimately released under penal code 849b, which is technical police-speak for “we realize we’ve got nothing here.” That said, a police spokesperson responded to Public Defender Adachi’s comments with an ominous assertion:

It still is an active criminal investigation, however, [Officer] Esparza said. “Time is on our side,” he said.

Who the f**k are you, a Die Hard villain? Who says stuff like this? Look, you’re in San Francisco. Outside of Dirty Harry movies, the “no one can defy the whims of the police” schtick isn’t going to carry a lot of weight with those folks. This is already a police department walking back from the drug war as unfair harassment. If the police want to go to the mat, they may not find much public tolerance for unconstitutionally bullying defendants.

So go ahead and think you have time on your side, because you don’t so much have the law.

Adachi blasts deputy public defender’s arrest; police say arrest was lawful

San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Arrested For Intervening Between Police And Her Client

Police Officer Handcuffed Meddling Defense Attorney to a Wall: Report