• Former San Francisco police officer Michael Celis permanently loses peace officer certification from California POST
• Celis among 14 SFPD officers who exchanged racist, homophobic texts discovered during 2012 federal corruption investigation
• Certification revoked September 12 after Celis failed to request review within 30-day period, ending decade-long saga

SAN FRANCISCO (TDR) — A California police officer accused of sending racist, homophobic texts that came to light in 2015 and embroiled his department in scandal will no longer be able to serve as a cop in the Golden State.

The California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) permanently revoked the peace officer certification of former San Francisco police officer Michael Celis on Sept. 12, according to official state records.

Celis was one of 14 officers from the San Francisco Police Department who exchanged numerous messages containing racist sentiments and slurs aimed at Black, Hispanic and gay people. The messages surfaced during a federal corruption investigation in 2012 but didn’t become public until 2015.

Decade-long legal battle

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POST served Celis with a notice of intent to revoke on July 31. When he failed to file a request for review within the 30-day response period, his certification was automatically revoked by default with no further proceedings.

The revocation ends a complicated decade-long saga involving statute of limitations disputes, court battles and multiple attempts to discipline the officers involved.

Federal agents discovered the messages in 2012 during a corruption probe of veteran plainclothes Sgt. Ian Furminger, who had exchanged thousands of texts with fellow officers. A jury convicted Furminger in December 2014 on federal charges of taking and dividing thousands of dollars in cash police had found while searching drug dealers and their homes.

Messages sparked outrage

The text messages included deeply offensive content. “N—ers should be spayed,” Furminger wrote in one message. “I saw one an hour ago with four kids.” Another stated: “All n—ers must f–king hang.”

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The San Francisco Police Department learned about the messages from federal prosecutors in December 2012 but did not disclose them publicly until March 2015, when then-Police Chief Greg Suhr announced he would fire nine of the officers and take disciplinary action against others.

“It just makes me sick to even talk about it,” Suhr said at the time. “Those [texts] don’t represent the minimum standard required” for police officers.

Statute of limitations battle

However, disciplinary proceedings hit a major snag. Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith halted the process in December 2015, ruling that Suhr and his staff were required to begin proceedings by December 2013, one year after finding out about the messages under the state’s Peace Officer Bill of Rights.

Three officers resigned in 2015 after Suhr called for their termination, but Celis, a 19-year veteran who earned $121,388 annually before overtime, requested and was granted his job back with no consequences after learning the charges were filed past the statute of limitations.

“It is not in the public interest to let police misconduct charges languish,” Goldsmith said in his ruling. “The public has a right to have accusations against police officers be promptly adjudicated.”

Appeals court reversal

The case took another turn in May 2018 when an appeals court ruled 3-0 that the one-year deadline had been suspended because of the ongoing federal criminal investigation, which ended only with the jury verdict in December 2014.

“The attitudes reflected in these messages displayed unacceptable prejudice against members of the communities SFPD is sworn to protect,” Justice Martin Jenkins wrote in the decision.

The ruling reopened the possibility that as many as nine officers who had been on paid leave since December 2015 could lose their jobs.

Broader impact

The scandal had far-reaching consequences. The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office re-examined thousands of cases the officers had handled and dismissed at least eight criminal cases because they were investigated by officers tied to the texts.

“The fact that San Francisco is forced to retain police officers that demonstrated explicit racism will have ramifications for the reputation of the department, the fair administration of justice and the trust of the community SFPD serves,” then-District Attorney George Gascón said.

Tony Brass, an attorney for Celis, acknowledged at the time that “racist texts, no one has ever defended their conduct,” but argued the case was about procedural issues, not the content of the messages.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera called the 2018 appeals court ruling a victory. “This ruling upholds police departments’ ability to coordinate with federal investigators to expose dirty cops and protect the public,” he said.

Should police departments face stricter deadlines for disciplining officers when evidence of misconduct is discovered during ongoing investigations?

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