Sergeant Jeremy Huff left the presidency as he entered it: quietly.
The rank and file of San Diego Police Department elected Huff as the president of their union less than a year ago. But already, Huff has resigned.
That’s because Police Chief Scott Wahl — who had a public feud with Huff — is trying to fire him, multiple sources in the department confirmed.
Huff’s file with the department isn’t exactly clean.
In 2021, he received a written warning for using unjustified force when he excessively punched a homeless person a year earlier, according to an internal affairs report. He also received the warning for not turning on his body worn camera.
More recently, Huff was also charged with falsifying his vehicle registration and lying to the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s unclear exactly what led to the charges, but eventually the more serious of them were dismissed. Huff was convicted of a simple infraction for not having a registration and paid a $25 fine.
But Huff’s potential firing is also noteworthy for his public beef with Wahl.
The feud started after a video emerged in January showing an officer beating a man with his hands behind his head, who appeared to be offering no resistance.
The video quickly sparked outrage.
During a radio interview with KOGO, a host asked Wahl about the video.
“In this particular case, I think there are things we could have done better,” he said. “We do have options that we could, and should be using at that point other than what was used.”
Huff responded to Wahl’s comments with outrage.
“Police use of force is always a reaction to someone’s actions. When someone complies with lawful orders, they get arrested or detained without incident,” Huff wrote. “[Wahl’s] statements have the potential to cause our members to second guess themselves during critical incidents where they only have a split second to make a choice. This doubt leads to bad decisions which can leave our members injured or dead.”
The statement war, as my colleague called it, didn’t stop there. Wahl shot back.
“Responding to a use of force incident by reaffirming my commitment to give officers the training, resources, and support they need to consistently meet the highest standard is not placing blame. It is part of being a leader,” he said.
Wahl added: “It is disappointing that the new [union] president chose to spend his first few days in office misconstruing my intent instead of working with me to better support our officers.”
Around two months after that statement, Huff received his termination papers. But the firing isn’t final. As with most public employees in California, Huff is entitled to multiple stages of due process.
I asked department officials whether Huff’s firing had anything to do with he and the chief’s public fight.
“The San Diego Police Department cannot comment on personnel matters. All Police Department employees are afforded due process regarding personnel issues,” wrote spokesperson Ashley Nicholes.
Huff also declined to comment.
During the incident that led to Huff’s written warning, he and another officer approached a man sleeping on a pedestrian bridge in Mira Mesa. This was in late February 2020, just weeks before the pandemic began.
Huff discovered the man had a warrant out for his arrest.
The man tightened his arms and tried to turn away when the two officers tried to arrest him. Huff believed the man hit him and Huff punched the man three or four times, according to an internal affairs report.
Huff wrestled the man to the ground and the man “refused to present his arms,” according to the report. Huff hit him in the face again.
That punch, not the earlier ones, counted as unjustified force, the report found.
Huff was also reprimanded because he did not turn on his body camera before or during the incident.
More recent court documents do not say exactly why Huff was charged with falsifying his vehicle registration.
A common version of that crime is for residents in California to register their cars in much cheaper states like Montana.
Eventually, city prosecutors dropped the charges against Huff — and he caught an infraction for not having a registration.
On its face, that would be a surprising reason to fire a cop.
In 2019, a statewide reporting project found that more than 80 cops were still working in California, despite having been convicted of many crimes ranging from animal cruelty to manslaughter and domestic violence.
One San Diego officer was charged with knocking his wife unconscious and kept his job, Voice of San Diego reported.
Since 2019, however, California’s laws have changed. A new law in 2021 established a process (one did not exist before) for revoking an officer’s certification.
Some of the reasons an officer’s certification can be revoked seem obvious, like abuse of power, physical abuse or sexual assault.
Another category of serious misconduct established by the law is dishonesty.
“Dishonesty relating to the reporting, investigation, or prosecution of a crime” all count, according to the commission on police training. “Intentionally filing false reports” is also mentioned.
During his time in the department, Huff was also involved in a shooting that prosecutors deemed justified.
Just days after the incident in which Huff beat the homeless man in Mira Mesa, he and another officer shot a different homeless man.
They were involved in an operation to clear an encampment in a park in the Otay Valley riverbed.
Huff ordered a man to exit his tent. When he made contact with the man he saw that he had a gun in his pocket. Huff ordered him to get down on the ground. Instead the man stuck his hand in his pocket.
Huff appeared to have fired one shot and the other officer 11, according to prosecutors.
The man sustained just three gunshot wounds, two to his arm and one to his leg, and lived.
Because the man reached for his gun, rather than getting on the ground, prosecutors deemed the shooting justified.
Officers recovered the man’s gun after the shooting. It was not an actual firearm; it was a BB gun.
Lieutenant Jared Wilson, the previous president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, was re-appointed to the post after Huff’s resignation.