A Plague of Secrets

39

CityTalk

By Jeffrey Elliot

City officials are still trying to piece together how security procedures in the Hall of Justice could have gone so awry as to allow the series of events that last Friday resulted in the deaths of four people, including two law enforcement personnel and City Supervisor Harlen Fisk, and the wounding of another man in one of the city’s courtrooms.

This reporter was present during the events that transpired and can relate that even before court was called into session that morning, a palpable tension reigned in Department 25, the courtroom of Judge Marian Braun, scene of the murder trial of Maya Townshend. Both Mayor Kathryn West, Mrs. Townshend’s aunt, and Fisk, her brother, were present in evident support of the defendant, and the attendant media presence as well as rumors of surprise, last-minute witnesses for the defense had packed the gallery.

Mrs. Townshend had been charged with the murders of Dylan Vogler, the manager of the Bay Beans West coffee shop that she owns, and another past associate of hers, Levon Preslee. The trial to date had focused upon evidence of Mrs. Townshend’s apparent motive for these murders, and experts had opined that it was particularly light on physical evidence implicating the defendant. So when defense attorney Dismas Hardy’s first witness, a fingerprint specialist at the police laboratory, identified one of Hardy’s own investigating team, Craig Chiurco, as having been present at the scene of Preslee’s murder, and perhaps having left a partial fingerprint on the bullet casing at the Vogler murder scene, the gallery grew tense with anticipation of what was to come.

It didn’t have long to wait, as Mr. Hardy briefly questioned one other witness who established Mr. Chiurco’s earlier and previously undisclosed relationship to both Vogler and Preslee, then called Mr. Chiurco. Apparently, not knowing what was taking place in court, he had been waiting outside in the hallway to take the stand. Mr. Hardy’s questions, and Mr. Chiurco’s responses, grew increasingly heated as Hardy tried to tie his associate to these crimes.

In the end, with Chiurco invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Mr. Hardy accused him point-blank of these murders, and pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. It took Judge Braun several minutes to restore order. Rather than having her bailiffs hold Chiurco for the police, Braun ordered him to consult an attorney and keep himself available for further examination if necessary. At that, the judge and the two lead attorneys left the room to confer in Judge Braun’s chambers, leaving Chiurco unguarded on the witness stand.

A few moments later the folly of Braun’s decision became apparent as Chiurco rose from the stand and started to make his way through the crowd that by now blocked the aisle of the gallery. He had nearly made it to the back door when Lieutenant Glitsky, chief of the city’s homicide department, called out and ordered one of the courtroom bailiffs, Linda Yang, to restrain Chiurco. But the desperate witness-now suddenly revealed as a murder suspect-struggled with the bailiff and managed not only to disarm her but to gain possession of her service weapon and to fire it into the ceiling.

As members of the gallery dropped to the floor or took shelter behind their chairs, homicide sergeant inspector Debra Schiff, who’d been seated at the prosecution table, fired a shot at Chiurco, which he returned, fatally wounding her. In the next few seconds another bailiff, Rolfe Hagen, fired at Chiurco again from inside the bar rail, and in response to that, Chiurco got off a flurry of shots that killed both Supervisor Fisk and bailiff Hagen before Lieutenant Glitsky saw an opening and fired one shot into Chiurco’s chest, killing him. Glitsky has been placed on the automatic administrative leave that follows any officer-involved shooting.

But the violence that could and did erupt with such tragic results even in a guarded courtroom leaves officials pondering a host of questions: Shouldn’t courtroom bailiffs in San Francisco be armed, as they are in every other jurisdiction in California? Or, on the other hand, should guns, even in the hands of police personnel, ever be allowed in courtrooms at all? Is there an adequate number of bailiffs in San Francisco courtrooms? Was Judge Braun negligent in affording a potential murder suspect the opportunity to escape and/or take hostages?

Above all, how was an innocent woman arrested and brought to trial for two murders in a San Francisco courtroom, based on an investigation that could be described, at best, as incompetent, and at worst, as grotesquely negligent?

The evidence of Maya Townshend’s innocence was right in front of the police and the prosecution during this entire investigation. Yet they chose to ignore it in what the unkind might describe as the pursuit of a political vendetta. In this reporter’s opinion it is a travesty that this case was ever allowed to be brought to trial at all.