A journalist refused to reveal his source. Then the police came to his door with rifles.

Bryan Carmody, a freelance journalist in San Francisco, woke up Friday at the sound of someone trying to break into his home.

A dozen police officers from the San Francisco Police Department hammered the door of his home in the Outer Richmond district, he said. It was just after 8 o'clock in the morning.

Carmody called and said that he would let them into the house. The police showed him a search warrant and went to his home – from "upstairs", he said, with their firearms fired.

"They treated me as if I were some sort of drug dealer," he said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Carmody was undergoing a raid as part of a criminal investigation.

Two weeks ago, investigators had come to his home to ask him – politely, he said – to identify the source who had provided him with a confidential police report on the death of the city's public defender. , Jeff Adachi, last February.

Carmody, who said he collaborated with three local TV stations, declined.

He was not about to give up his source on Friday either, despite escalating – not to the police or two FBI agents in lawsuits who questioned him on the ## 147 ## ############################################################################## Case, "he said.

"I'm smart enough to never talk to federal agents," Carmody said. "I did not stop saying," lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. "

Thus, he remained handcuffed for six hours, he says. A certificate of release from the police department that he distributed shows that he was in custody from 8:22 to 13:55. The investigators searched his home and then his office, where they found the report in a safe. A search warrant filed in the case indicates that it was issued while the police were investigating "stolen or stolen property".

"There are only two people on this planet who know who leaked this report – me and the guy who did it," Carmody said.

The raid on Carmody's home and office attracted attention to the first amendment in the Bay Area over the weekend. And this has added a new twist to the plot that has surrounded the death of Adachi, who has made himself known as a public defender during the 16 years he has held the position.

Adachi, the only public defender elected in California, was known as a watchdog for police misconduct. His death, February 22 at the age of 59, had been attributed in early reports to a heart attack.

Then more information appeared.

On February 24, ABC 7 published an article after reporting a police report and photos of Adachi's death, with unflattering details about the defender's last hours. The story told that he had been with a woman named Caterina – not his wife – and that he had been found unresponsive in an apartment with "a defeated bed, empty bottles of alcohol." , cannabis sweets and two syringes left by paramedics ". . "

The publication of these details, which shed little light on the nature of Adachi's death and further called into question his character, led some to question whether the police had retaliated against Adachi even after his death.

"It's odd that we read about the details of another" woman ", the renting of an apartment, as well as totally useless mentions of alcohol, cannabis and syringes," the SFist newspaper wrote. "Of course, the incident must be investigated, like any other death, but the information that emerges gives the impression that the fighting that Adachi has been fighting for decades with law enforcement – on behalf of defendants or otherwise – may continue even after his death. "

Tim Redmond, editor of San Francisco's news website, 48 Hills, described the local coverage as "disgusting," noting how much Adachi did not like many city police officers in a message that he had written at the time.

"Where do you think they were coming from?" Why do you think they ended up with sensational TV channels? He wrote on the provenance of the police report. "The photos were widely distributed without any context. There are pictures of "a defeated bed" – an irrelevant salacious insinuation. "

Carmody refused to give details of the three outlets with which he worked on the story.

As a "stringer" in the televised jargon, Carmody occupies the small niche in the world of audiovisual journalism that has been satirized in the Hollywood movie "Nightcrawler" (2014).

He works every night from around 22h. at 6 o'clock in the morning, when he pursues news, such as car accidents, crime scenes, disasters, weather anomalies, the release of a new video game – "all that is going on overnight, "he says – and then sells his services and equipment that he gathers at local stations for their morning shows. His name is rarely included in the report or in the corresponding documents, he said.

His company, North Bay Television, which operates a downtown office full of police scanners, computers and a coffee machine, employs three to four people, up from 10 previously.

"Like all media, we shrink," he said.

He stated that he had never paid any of his sources for information or material.

Asked about tensions between the police department and Adachi, Carmody declined to comment on the case's policy.

"I did not have any beef with him; I did not have any beef with anyone. I'm just a journalist in the middle of that, "he said.

He added that he thought he was being targeted because he was a freelancer, pointing out that details of the police report had been published in other publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle.

"I do not think there was a police raid on the Chronicle with a hammer yesterday," he said.

A report from the medical examiner, which was published in the media in March, gave more details about the death of Adachi. The bureau said his death was an accident due to the effects of cocaine and alcohol, associated with a pre-existing heart condition, according to Adachi.

The San Francisco Police Department defended the investigation Saturday in a statement sent to local journalists.

"The citizens and leaders of the city of San Francisco have called for a thorough and thorough investigation into this leak. This action represents a step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice as well as the illegal distribution of confidential police documents, "That said.

An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau agents had not participated in the execution of the search warrant but had confirmed their presence to question Carmody.

A law enforcement official, who requested anonymity to discuss the case, said that Carmody had been handcuffed for procedural reasons related to "multiple weapons" in the House. Carmody stated that he was the rightful owner of an unspecified number of firearms.

Carmody said that her ability to work now is paralyzed by the seizure of her electronic devices. A search warrant and affidavit that he distributed indicated that the police had brought at least four tablets, seven computers, 10 hard drives, a dozen phones, two cameras, journalist's notebooks and a USB key. He launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds to buy more equipment.

Thomas R. Burke, counsel for the first amendment in the San Francisco Bay Area who represents Carmody, said that in his opinion, the police was significantly outdated.

"The proper thing was to issue a subpoena, not a search warrant," he said, pointing to the extent of Carmody's equipment on which they controlled all the devices and notebooks. He said that he wanted to know if the judges who signed the warrants knew that they were for the home and the reporter's office.

Carmody said he had never been pressured by police to give up a source in 29 years of reporting, citing as an example the leak of photographs by the transport agency. San Francisco recently acquired, revealing a safety problem for some trains.

"I am shocked to see how much has already been done," he said. "It's already gone out of control."