Police searched a Webster Street home this week looking for photos of a bruise on the upper right arm of Ross Mirkarimi’s wife, where the sheriff-elect allegedly grabbed her during a New Year’s Eve incident, according to court documents.
Eliana Lopez, Mirkarmi’s wife, visited the home of her neighbor Ivory Madison on the afternoon of Jan. 1, when Lopez showed Madison marks on her upper arm made “when Mr. Mirkarimi grabbed her” on Dec. 31, according to documents on file at San Francisco Superior Court.
Madison took iPhone photos and videotape footage of the bruise at Lopez’s request, Madison later told police, but under the condition “she would not provide the video to police,” according to Inspector John P. Keane of the SFPD’s Domestic Violence Response Unit.
Madison called SFPD at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday to ask if an incident “reported today… could still be investigated and lead to arrest,” according to a statement filed by Keane.
“She wanted to know if it was common police practice to go to the suspect’s workplace and interview him and possibly arrest him.” Lopez was reluctant to go forward to police because of her husband’s position in San Francisco city government, Madison told police.
Mirikarimi has served as city supervisor for District 5, which includes the Western Addition, Fillmore, Haight-Ashbury and Inner Sunset neighborhoods, since 2004. He is scheduled to take the oath of office for sheriff on Sunday.
Inspectors interviewed Madison at her home, four numbers up from Mirkarimi and Lopez’s address, later that afternoon. The same day, police obtained a search warrant for Madison’s home (you can see the entire search warrant here), from where they seized both Madison’s iPhone and Panasonic video camera in order to view the images of the bruise, according to the documents filed Thursday.
An SFPD spokesman said the department could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, citing state law which protect victims’ privacy in domestic assault cases. “If there’s a booking, then we may be able to release more,” police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak told The Appeal.
The case is currently under investigation by SFPD and has not yet been forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for consideration of possible charges, according to Stephanie Ong Stillman, a spokesman for District Attorney George Gascon.
Mirkarimi did not return a telephone message seeking comment from the Appeal. In a statement released to legacy media by political consultant Jim Stearns, who ran Mirkarimi’s successful campaign for county sheriff in November, Lopez denied any allegations of abuse.
Efforts by the Appeal to contact Madison, a local writer who founded www.redroom.com, were not immediately successful.
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