Police raided the home and office of a freelance journalist Friday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a leaked confidential police report containing salacious details about the death of late Public Defender Jeff Adachi.
Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody told the San Francisco Examiner that his home and office were raided by police and FBI agents because he had obtained a copy of the police report, and sold information from that report to the press following Adachi’s death on February 22.
The leak drew wide condemnation and prompted members of the Board of Supervisors to call for the police department to investigate and hold accountable the source of it within the department.
Two weeks prior, Carmody said that he was interviewed by police officers about where he obtained his information, but refused to disclose his source. Today, Carmody said that police and FBI agents executed a search warrant on his Richmond District home and Western Addition office.
They confiscated his cell phones, computers and a copy of the police report from within his office safe.
“They have completely shut down my business,” said Carmody, who has operated as an independent stringer for Bay Area and national television stations, including Fox News, CNBC and CBS Evening news.
Carmody accused police of “intimidation” to “make me break my [journalistic] ethics.”
“I’m refusing to give up my source,” he said.
A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson defended their action in a statement Friday, saying that the warrant was granted by a judge and the raid was “part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report.”
“Today’s actions are one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report,” the statement read.
Carmody said that police and FBI agents attempted to enter his home at 8:30 a.m. using “a sledgehammer.”
“They were in the process of breaking my gate down at which time I woke up and let them in,” said Carmody, adding that the authorities entered his home with guns drawn and searched “my entire house from attic to garage.”