SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — At least five more San Francisco police officers allegedly sent racist and homophobic text messages, in addition to 14 others between 2011 and 2012, according to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.

The most-recent messages were allegedly sent between 2014 and late 2015, Gascon said.

“It’s very disturbing,” Gascon said. “In fact, in some of the communication, they’re almost mocking what’s going on, so they’re clearly aware of what was going on, that it’s in the public eye, and the communication goes during the time and long after this thing sort of subsided. So, it’s really disturbing.”

The district attorney’s office said that this is new information, but the San Francisco police chief said the department has known about this for months and those officers have already been disciplined.

On Wednesday, the district attorney’s office sent the San Francisco police chief a letter about the racists messages, according to Gascon. Gascon said his office discovered the messages last week as they were reviewing 5,000 pages of documents in an unrelated case.

“Talking about African-Americans and using the “N” word repeatedly,” Gascon said. “They’re talking about members of the LGBT community also in a very disparaging fashion.”

But police Chf. Greg Suhr said these most-recent texts came to light during another investigation into allegations of sexual assault made last year against off-duty San Francisco police officer Jason Lai.

“After…six, seven weeks [into the investigation], there were text messages of a reprehensible, racist, homophobic nature discovered as part of the criminal investigation,” Suhr said. “We were looking through the cellphone of Ofc. Lai and a lieutenant that might have been involved in the conduct. As part of that criminal case, we came across these messages.”

Suhr said four officers were immediately suspended as soon as police were made aware of the messages. Two of those officers have left the department, Suhr said.

One of those four officers is Lai, Suhr added.

“The investigation also revealed that three other officers had each received single questionable text messages from Officer Lai. These officers underwent an administrative investigation that determined that they had received a text message but did not send any questionable messages. The investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against the officers,” Sgt. Michael Andraychak said in a press release.

The district attorney and police chief have provided different narratives concerning the new text messages.

Gascon said Thursday his office was not notified of the bigoted text messages by police and only learned of it late last week after sifting through the thousands of pages of messages themselves.

“It was never pointed out to us,” Gascon said.

“If the department knew about it, it’s a problem that we weren’t told,” he said.

In a letter responding to Gascon that was also provided to the media, Suhr wrote Thursday that the district attorney’s office was sent evidence including the text messages on Sept. 21, and that police notified his office on multiple occasions in September, October, November and January of the existence of the texts.

“For you to suggest that you discovered the text messages through your own criminal investigation would be disingenuous,” Suhr wrote. “This is not new information as our offices have been working closely on this case with at least three members of your staff to ensure the fair administration of justice.”

Police said last week there was insufficient evidence for a sexual assault charge, but did result in other charges, police said. Officer Lai was charged with two misdemeanor counts of unlawful possession of local criminal offender history information and four misdemeanor counts of misuse of confidential Department of Motor Vehicles information, police said.

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“I’ve been very, very clear, that any officer capable of such conduct clearly falls below the minimum standards required to be a police officer and will be acted on swiftly,” Suhr said. “That has been the case in this instance.”

“Chief Suhr wants to reassure the public that upon discovery of these text messages, the Department took immediate action in removing the officers from public contact, bringing charges before the Police Commission and notifying the District Attorney’s Office so that they could take appropriate steps in reviewing criminal case files,” Sgt. Andraychak said in the press release.

Last year’s racist text scandal came amid growing tensions between police departments and communities of color.

As many as a dozen officers were implicated in exchanging the text messages, including references to shooting black people. However, the department failed to act until after they became public and by then it was too late.

The messages were revealed in the course of an investigation into officers who had been stealing from single room occupancy hotel residents in the course of a drug investigation. Three of those officers were convicted in federal court and sentenced to prison.

A superior court judge ruled in December that the department waited too long to take any action against the officers involved in the racist text scandal. The texts were sent in 2012, and although the department knew about them, the department did not begin an investigation until January 2015.

Gascon said last year there were at least five officers involved.

“I think it’s safe to say that this problem is more systemic, and it needs to be addressed in a more deeper fashion,” Gascon said.

The messages were sent and received from Sgt. Ian Furminger’s cellphone in 2011 and 2012 with four other officers, identified by their lawyers as Rain Daugherty, Michael Robison, Michael Celis and Noel Schwab.

The investigation into the messages later expanded to include as many as 14 officers and police Chief Greg Suhr vowed to seek termination for seven of the officers involved.

But in court filings, Daugherty argued that the department had acknowledged it had all the text messages by December 2012, long before they were made public, and that the one-year statute of limitations for such investigations had expired.

Court filings did not reveal which officers sent which messages. They contained racial slurs, jokes about killing black people and references to “white power.”

In one text message, Furminger exchanged text messages with another SFPD officer about a black man married to a friend of his wife. The couple was visiting their home at the time.

“Get ur pocket gun. Keep it available in case the monkey returns to his roots,” the unnamed police officer texted Furminger, according to the government motion. “Its [sic] not against the law to put an animal down.”

“Well said!” the government says Furminger replied.

Furminger also allegedly called another officer a “f-g,” called a black officer a “f–n n–r,” according to CNN, and made derogatory comments about Mexicans and Filipinos.

One of the officers, Robison, resigned shortly after the revelation. The investigation into the messages expanded to as many as 14 officers and police Chief Greg Suhr vowed to seek termination for seven of the officers involved.

Gascon said prosecutors are in the process of notifying defense attorneys handling cases where the accused officers are involved. He said he did not know how many cases might be affected.

Gascon said prosecutors did not see the contents of the texts until recently because reviewing the evidence is time-consuming while they are also handling other cases. He added that about 20,000 pages with printed-out copies of text messages still have to be reviewed.

He said the latest revelations are particularly concerning because these officers are unrelated to the previous ones and because the San Francisco Police Officers Association has been “consistently combative when you criticize anything going on in the department.”

The police union has frequently publicly criticized Gascon and a blue ribbon panel he created last year to investigate police bias and misconduct.

Among the union’s allegations is that Gascon made disparaging remarks about minorities during a dinner in 2010 when he was police chief, an allegation that Gascon has denied.Statement from Martin Halloran, President of the San Francisco Police Officers’ Association:

To be a San Francisco Police Officer is a sacred trust granted to us by the people we serve. When an officer violates that trust he or she must be held accountable.

“The San Francisco Police Officers’ Association condemns the appalling racist behavior committed by a handful of officers. They have disgraced the uniform and their profession. This conduct will not be tolerated in the SFPD nor in the POA. Chief Suhr has the full support of the POA to take appropriate disciplinary action that protects the due process rights of the officers.

“The reprehensible actions by a few officers do not reflect the overall commitment and dedication of the men and women of this department who serve and protect this city and its residents.

Statement from San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi:

“In light of revelations that a second group of San Francisco police officers exchanged racist and homophobic text messages, my office will begin a full review of past cases that may have been tainted by these officers. I am also calling for an independent investigation into when the police chief and district attorney learned of the text messages. Every person in San Francisco deserves equal justice. It does them a grave disservice to dismiss every hateful act as an isolated incident. The police department must address the culture that lets racism fester in its ranks.”

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