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San Francisco police officers were demanding that District Attorney Kamala Harris recuse herself from the prosecution of accused cop killer David Hill. After DA spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh said Harris is “not going to change her mind” about the death penalty, the Police Officers Association called on Attorney General Bill Lockyer to step in. Within an hour, Harris stood at her desk and reiterated both her sympathy and her resolve. “I believe that the relationship with the police will improve as emotions start to be replaced by reason,” she said.

A federal jury hammered the city of San Francisco with a $750,000 verdict for illegally strip-searching a woman to determine her gender after her prostitution arrest. Police arrested Victoria Schneider on June 13, 1996, at Post and Hyde streets on suspicion of prostitution. Schneider, who underwent a successful sex change operation in 1992, had been arrested before and booked as a female. Following her 1996 arrest, however, Schneider was put in with male inmates for about 30 minutes until a strip search confirmed her protests that she was, in fact, a woman. Schneider, represented by Karen Snell of Clarence & Snell, argued during the week-long trial that the jail had her gender on record from her prior arrests.