San Francisco Police Department arrests suspect in connection with killing of police brutality victim

Shortly after midnight on July 3, 43-year-old Hin Hoang was arrested by San Francisco police for the suspected murder of 36-year-old Dacari Spiers, the subject of a high-profile 2022 police brutality case, the police department said today.

According to Mission Local, around 4 a.m. on June 15, a witness heard people arguing on Wiese Alley between 15th and 16th streets. Then two shots rang out. Police arrived shortly afterward and found Spiers near 15th and Wiese suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. He died soon after in the hospital.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the police investigation into the shooting revealed that Spiers had been at an illegal gambling house that evening.

Two and a half weeks later, Hoang was arrested in San Francisco at a home on Harold Street between Holloway and Grafton. The arrest was made with the help of the SWAT team, and police also seized evidence from Hoang to assist in the murder investigation. Hoang was arrested at 5:22 a.m., according to jail records, and is now being held in San Francisco County Jail #2, where he is charged with murder.

In 2006, the East Bay Times reported that a man with the same name and age as Hoang was arrested along with his parents for growing and distributing marijuana. The operation spanned three homes, and at the time of the arrest they were in possession of over $1 million worth of marijuana.

In 2006, Hoang was also on probation for a weapons offense and was wanted in San Francisco for carrying a concealed weapon and possession of marijuana, but he failed to appear in court.

Spiers, 36, received a $700,000 settlement from the city – the largest excessive-force award in the city since at least 2010 – after San Francisco police officer Terrance Stangel beat him with a metal baton near Fisherman’s Wharf in October 2019, breaking his wrist and leg. Police responded to a 911 call reporting a domestic violence incident, although that incident was never confirmed.

Spires’ incident also formed the basis for one of the first prosecutions of a police officer in San Francisco history. Then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin initiated it against Stangel. The jury acquitted the officer on three of the four charges, but was unable to agree on the last one.

“The beating was not something (Spiers) could just brush off… it broke him,” Rebecca Young, a prosecutor in the city’s case against the officer, previously told Mission Local.