Flushed meth, stolen machine gun at center of SFPD misconduct arrests

Two San Francisco police officers and one former San Francisco police officer were arrested Tuesday on unrelated charges, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the San Francisco Police Department.

The two current officers, Kevin Patrick Lyons and Kevin David Sien, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence last July.

According to Boudin’s office, the two officers were called to the San Francisco Marriott Marquis after hotel workers found multiple credit cards, ID cards and methamphetamine in the luggage of a hotel guest who had been locked out of his room.

Lyons and Sien allegedly told hotel staff that collecting the evidence would take too long and, according to Boudin’s office, put the credit cards and IDs into a document shredder. Lyons also allegedly flushed the methamphetamine down a hotel toilet.

Boudin said in a statement:

These officers undermined their own colleagues, my office, and our criminal justice system as a whole by destroying and concealing the evidence of a crime, simply because they didn’t want to take the time to do their jobs.”

The retired officer, Mark Williams, was arrested after he allegedly stole an MP5 submachine gun from the SFPD’s Property Control Division. Williams was also allegedly in unlawful possession of a silencer, according to the district attorney’s office.

Williams was working part-time in SFPD’s Property Division under a city program that allows retired city employees to help fill staffing shortages, according to the SFPD.

At the time Williams allegedly took the gun, the Property Division was preparing 22 MP5 submachine guns for destruction. An inventory of the weapons on Aug. 9, 2021, found only 21 present.

On Aug. 13, 2021, Williams confessed to the SFPD that he had the weapon in his home in Napa, where it was recovered without incident that same day.

SFPD Chief William Scott praised the department’s Internal Affairs Division for its investigation that led to the arrests and argued that the three men’s actions “fall far short” of the department’s values.

“As sworn police officers, we have no higher obligation than to earn and maintain public trust, and we are disappointed that these incidents detract from the outstanding work done by our officers and non-sworn members every day,” Scott said in a statement.

According to Boudin’s office, all three are set to be arraigned May 19.