She doesn’t just want to defund the police — she also wants to coddle perps who attack cops.
Vice President Harris supported pre-trial diversion initiatives to suspects who assaulted cops while she served as district attorney of San Francisco, a review of the public record shows.
Harris served as DA from 2004 to 2010, before moving on to attorney general of California.
Harris’ abandoning law enforcers stung all the more because she had come into office pledging to get tough on violent lawbreakers.
“Violent people should be held accountable,” she said in February 2007 after announcing plans to get tough on cop assault, according to an SFGate report.
According to local reports, however, Harris’ plans were derailedby San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Harris was reportedly spooked after Adachi staged a formal protest outside police headquarters. Adachi died in 2019 — an autopsy later confirmed cocaine contributed to his death.
“This was Kamala’s first flip-flop,” said one former San Francisco cop who remembered the situation well. “We felt betrayed.”
In a compromise with Adachi, Harris said misdemeanor assault on a cop could qualify for pre-trial diversion and that punching a police officer could be remediated with counseling and other services — instead of jail time.
“The bottom line is that if a suspect assaults a police officer, he should go to jail, not to class,” said San Francisco police Capt. Kevin Cashman at the time — who noted that punching a prosecutor would still be an immediate one-way ticket to state prison.
Cop assaults that left “visible or substantial or significant injuries,” would still be eligible for traditional prosecution. The policy allowed judges to decide on a case by case basis.
“We had guys making arrests for a lot of different things, Friday, Saturday nights, young people, lot of assaults. The cops were very frustrated because these cases weren’t being prosecuted,” said Stephen Tacchini, a 35-year veteran of the San Francisco PD who is now retired.
In addition to punches and slaps, the Harris policy also offered get-out-of-jail-free card to spitting on cops.
The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association issued a formal protest letter.
“We believe a clear and resounding message must be sent to any person who physically attacks those who are charged with protecting our society,” they wrote the 2007 missive to Harris. “Granting someone pre-trial diversion for assaulting a police officer simply because there are no visible injuries is unacceptable.”
Harris’ anti-police record continued throughout her career. With the rebirth of the violent Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, Harris — then a US senator — praised the defund-the-police movement and supported a plan by LA mayor Eric Garcetti to nix $150 million in police funding that year. She has compared policing to lynching and Jim Crow laws.
“We have to redirect resources” from police, she said shortly after the death of George Floyd.
A rep for Harris did not respond to request for comment from The Post.
