Post by WaTcHeR on Feb 7, 2006 11:36:43 GMT -5
Claude Reissner, a 52-year-old nurse, was walking through the Tenderloin on his way to work at St. Francis Hospital, when he suddenly heard the sound of running feet behind him.
Reissner turned to see a big man with a contorted face hurtling toward him. Having worked more than a decade in hospital emergency rooms, Reissner thought it was "a psycho who had come unhinged."
Soon, he thought he was going to die.
The man leapt on him, twisted his right arm behind him, smashed him against a wall, threw him to the ground, and jumped on top of him.
"I have no idea who the guy is -- I think he is killing me," Reissner, who weighs about 200 pounds and is 6 feet tall, recalled in a telephone interview.
A crowd gathered, Reissner said, and he screamed, "Help! Call the police!''
Someone in the crowd yelled, "He is the police.''
The attacker was 33-year-old Henry B. Yee, a 5-foot-8-inch, 180-pound San Francisco officer assigned to an undercover narcotics team.
Yee had a record as an officer who readily turned to force. He had made a string of narcotics arrests in which he used his baton, choked and tackled suspects. Two suspects had gone to the hospital with injuries. In 1997, his name had appeared on a department watch list of officers who reported frequent use of force.
On Aug. 11, 1999, when Reissner learned that Yee was a police officer, he told him that cards in his wallet would prove he was a nurse at the nearby hospital.
"I begged him for my life, and he kept saying, 'Shut up!' while attacking me for 15 minutes," Reissner recalled. Yee choked Reissner with his own shirt, Reissner said. He added that several times he almost lost consciousness when Yee pressed his knee into his stomach.
Once Yee had handcuffed him, Reissner said, the officer "gave out an animal growl and threw me backwards. He then pinned me to the ground face-up with all his weight and my weight pushing down on my handcuffed wrists."
Reissner said Yee handcuffed him so tightly that he screamed in pain.
'If you're here, you're guilty'
As he was being driven to the police station, Reissner said, he complained about being attacked without warning by an officer who didn't identify himself.
"I am going to find a lawyer," he told two officers in the patrol car.
At the station, Reissner said he was handcuffed to a bench. When he asked an officer if he could call his job to say he would be late, the officer told him no, adding that "we heard you were talking that lawyer s -- , and if you talk that lawyer s -- , you get nothin' around here. If you're here, you're guilty."
Yee came over about 10 minutes later, laughed, and began unlocking the handcuffs, Reissner recalled. He quoted the officer as saying "in a booming voice, 'It's a case of mistaken identity. Welcome to San Francisco.' "
Reissner said as he left the police station he passed Yee, who said to him in a caustic tone: "I guess all I can say is, 'Soorrrry.' "
The officers who had driven him to the station drove him to St. Francis Hospital, where he was treated for a strained right shoulder and other injuries. When the officers dropped him off, Reissner said, one of them told him: "Think of the story you'll be able to tell your grandchildren."
In his police report, Yee wrote that he thought Reissner was a drug dealer. From the beginning of the encounter, he wrote, he identified himself as a police officer. At no time did Reissner have any trouble breathing, because he was able to keep yelling, Yee said.
Yee, who now works out of Southern Station at 850 Bryant St., did not respond to requests for comment.
After his encounter with Reissner, Yee continued to use force regularly when subduing suspects. Between August 1999 and 2004, two more suspects received hospital treatment for injuries after being arrested by Yee.
In 2003, Yee was promoted to sergeant. By the end of 2004, he had reported using force 28 times since 1996 -- putting him in the top 1 percent of San Francisco police officers who reported using force.
Memories linger after relocation
In the months after the attack by Yee, Reissner said, he saw a counselor to try to stave off the panic welling up in him every time he returned to work. He had nightmares, flashbacks and outbursts of anger. He said his right hand was numb for six months because of the handcuffs. He had aching pain in his right shoulder.
Reissner said he finally quit his job at St. Francis Hospital because of his pain and the stress of being in the city.
He filed a complaint about his treatment with the Office of Citizen Complaints, and the agency did not sustain it -- a decision he called "a farce. I had voluminous medical records showing he beat me to a pulp, and they didn't sustain a complaint of unnecessary force. This agency is a joke."
Reissner filed a lawsuit, which the city settled in 2001 for $150,000. The Police Department says lawsuits are settled for various reasons, and settlements don't necessarily indicate police misconduct.
In the years since, he has slowly healed and has returned to work as an emergency room nurse. He lives in a house surrounded by pine trees in a city hundreds of miles from San Francisco.
He says he still can't swim, skip stones or play handball -- all activities he loved -- because of the pain he still suffers in his right shoulder. It takes only a loud noise or the sound of running feet for him to be right back to his stark terror of that day in the Tenderloin, he said.
"It all starts again in my head. ... Here's Henry," he said. "I try to get away from him, but I can't. I'm back in the Tenderloin getting the crap beat out of me."
About San Francisco police, he said: "It goes back to that biblical thing: How you treat the least of us is how you should be judged. It's the most unfortunate ones, the most vulnerable that the cops are preying on, and that's horrendous."
When The Chronicle informed Reissner that Yee had been promoted to sergeant, he said: "That's why I don't live in San Francisco anymore. In spite of what happened, Yee had the city attorneys there in his behalf at my deposition, trying to prove I was a liar.
"If this were a righteous city that was watching its officers, Yee never would have done this," Reissner said.
"How could he end up as a sergeant after this case?"
Reissner turned to see a big man with a contorted face hurtling toward him. Having worked more than a decade in hospital emergency rooms, Reissner thought it was "a psycho who had come unhinged."
Soon, he thought he was going to die.
The man leapt on him, twisted his right arm behind him, smashed him against a wall, threw him to the ground, and jumped on top of him.
"I have no idea who the guy is -- I think he is killing me," Reissner, who weighs about 200 pounds and is 6 feet tall, recalled in a telephone interview.
A crowd gathered, Reissner said, and he screamed, "Help! Call the police!''
Someone in the crowd yelled, "He is the police.''
The attacker was 33-year-old Henry B. Yee, a 5-foot-8-inch, 180-pound San Francisco officer assigned to an undercover narcotics team.
Yee had a record as an officer who readily turned to force. He had made a string of narcotics arrests in which he used his baton, choked and tackled suspects. Two suspects had gone to the hospital with injuries. In 1997, his name had appeared on a department watch list of officers who reported frequent use of force.
On Aug. 11, 1999, when Reissner learned that Yee was a police officer, he told him that cards in his wallet would prove he was a nurse at the nearby hospital.
"I begged him for my life, and he kept saying, 'Shut up!' while attacking me for 15 minutes," Reissner recalled. Yee choked Reissner with his own shirt, Reissner said. He added that several times he almost lost consciousness when Yee pressed his knee into his stomach.
Once Yee had handcuffed him, Reissner said, the officer "gave out an animal growl and threw me backwards. He then pinned me to the ground face-up with all his weight and my weight pushing down on my handcuffed wrists."
Reissner said Yee handcuffed him so tightly that he screamed in pain.
'If you're here, you're guilty'
As he was being driven to the police station, Reissner said, he complained about being attacked without warning by an officer who didn't identify himself.
"I am going to find a lawyer," he told two officers in the patrol car.
At the station, Reissner said he was handcuffed to a bench. When he asked an officer if he could call his job to say he would be late, the officer told him no, adding that "we heard you were talking that lawyer s -- , and if you talk that lawyer s -- , you get nothin' around here. If you're here, you're guilty."
Yee came over about 10 minutes later, laughed, and began unlocking the handcuffs, Reissner recalled. He quoted the officer as saying "in a booming voice, 'It's a case of mistaken identity. Welcome to San Francisco.' "
Reissner said as he left the police station he passed Yee, who said to him in a caustic tone: "I guess all I can say is, 'Soorrrry.' "
The officers who had driven him to the station drove him to St. Francis Hospital, where he was treated for a strained right shoulder and other injuries. When the officers dropped him off, Reissner said, one of them told him: "Think of the story you'll be able to tell your grandchildren."
In his police report, Yee wrote that he thought Reissner was a drug dealer. From the beginning of the encounter, he wrote, he identified himself as a police officer. At no time did Reissner have any trouble breathing, because he was able to keep yelling, Yee said.
Yee, who now works out of Southern Station at 850 Bryant St., did not respond to requests for comment.
After his encounter with Reissner, Yee continued to use force regularly when subduing suspects. Between August 1999 and 2004, two more suspects received hospital treatment for injuries after being arrested by Yee.
In 2003, Yee was promoted to sergeant. By the end of 2004, he had reported using force 28 times since 1996 -- putting him in the top 1 percent of San Francisco police officers who reported using force.
Memories linger after relocation
In the months after the attack by Yee, Reissner said, he saw a counselor to try to stave off the panic welling up in him every time he returned to work. He had nightmares, flashbacks and outbursts of anger. He said his right hand was numb for six months because of the handcuffs. He had aching pain in his right shoulder.
Reissner said he finally quit his job at St. Francis Hospital because of his pain and the stress of being in the city.
He filed a complaint about his treatment with the Office of Citizen Complaints, and the agency did not sustain it -- a decision he called "a farce. I had voluminous medical records showing he beat me to a pulp, and they didn't sustain a complaint of unnecessary force. This agency is a joke."
Reissner filed a lawsuit, which the city settled in 2001 for $150,000. The Police Department says lawsuits are settled for various reasons, and settlements don't necessarily indicate police misconduct.
In the years since, he has slowly healed and has returned to work as an emergency room nurse. He lives in a house surrounded by pine trees in a city hundreds of miles from San Francisco.
He says he still can't swim, skip stones or play handball -- all activities he loved -- because of the pain he still suffers in his right shoulder. It takes only a loud noise or the sound of running feet for him to be right back to his stark terror of that day in the Tenderloin, he said.
"It all starts again in my head. ... Here's Henry," he said. "I try to get away from him, but I can't. I'm back in the Tenderloin getting the crap beat out of me."
About San Francisco police, he said: "It goes back to that biblical thing: How you treat the least of us is how you should be judged. It's the most unfortunate ones, the most vulnerable that the cops are preying on, and that's horrendous."
When The Chronicle informed Reissner that Yee had been promoted to sergeant, he said: "That's why I don't live in San Francisco anymore. In spite of what happened, Yee had the city attorneys there in his behalf at my deposition, trying to prove I was a liar.
"If this were a righteous city that was watching its officers, Yee never would have done this," Reissner said.
"How could he end up as a sergeant after this case?"