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San Francisco Journalist Takes Police to Court Over Raid

San Francisco police officers conducted a search at the home of journalist Bryan Carmody. (Byan Carmody via Los Angeles Times)

The controversial search of a veteran San Francisco journalist’s home and office by police as part of a leak investigation about Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s death was “violent and breathtakingly overbroad,” the reporter’s attorneys told a judge Thursday.

The attorneys representing freelance videographer Bryan Carmody asked a San Francisco County Superior Court judge to void the search warrants that allowed police to show up with sledgehammers and raid his home at gunpoint. His lawyers also asked the judge to order the return of 68 items — computers, notebooks, hard drives and phones — seized by officers.

Authorities were investigating how Carmody obtained the police report that offered details and photos related to the sudden death of Adachi on Feb. 22 at an apartment in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood.

Carmody said he sold a package of his reporting, which included the report, to Bay Area TV stations. But the salacious details broadcast on television and online prompted anger from Adachi’s family and condemnation of police for allowing the report to get into journalists’ hands.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

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