A San Francisco police officer who reported using force more often than any other officer over a nine-year period is at the center of four incidents in the last nine months in which citizens say they were subjected to excessive force, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. In one incident, a young man who told officer Jesse Serna he would be making a complaint against him said that moments later he was thrown to the ground by officers and was zapped 12 times with a stun gun as he lay handcuffed on the street. In another incident, a man said Serna hit him twice with his baton after he told police they were using force on someone who had been the victim of an assault.
Since he joined the department, Serna, 41, has been involved in three lawsuits alleging excessive force that cost taxpayers a total of $195,000. Sixteen months ago, The Chronicle published a series of articles on the San Francisco Police Department’s use of force. For that series, the newspaper created a database of officers’ 1996-2004 force reports and identified Serna as by far the highest reported user of force in the 2,200-member department. In that period, Serna reported using force 57 times and injuring 31 people. His tally of force-involved incidents was 50 percent higher than any other officer. He is the stepson of one of the department’s highest-ranking officers — Police Commander Stephen Tacchini.
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/24/MNGJSQ0N5Q1.DTL