SF Public Defender Releases Bodycam of Officers Beating Kevon Gibson, Accuses DA of a Cover-Up

San Francisco's public defender released body-camera and hallway surveillance footage on Thursday showing three police officers repeatedly striking 33-year-old Kevon Gibson during an arrest last year, and accused District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' office of trying to keep parts of the case from the jury and the public.

What the video shows

The arrest happened Aug. 17, 2025, at a residential hotel on Sixth Street in South of Market. Officers told Gibson as he stepped from an elevator that he was not under arrest, then grabbed his wrists and took him to the ground, according to the footage described by CBS and ABC7. Over several minutes officers punched and kicked him, knelt on his head and neck and pulled his hair while he said he could not breathe. Gibson spent several days in intensive care, the public defender's office said.

Defenders say the call began with a neighbor who accused Gibson of threatening him with a gun, and that body-camera audio captured that neighbor using a racial slur and threatening to stab Gibson. The office named the officers as Brendan Caraway, Brian Conway and Gabriel Rivera.

The verdict, and two versions of it

Prosecutors charged Gibson with criminal threats, three felony counts of resisting arrest and gun possession. The threats charge was dropped during trial, and the jury acquitted him of the three felonies but convicted him of misdemeanor resisting arrest and unlawful gun possession, according to the defense. The DA's office says a loaded, unregistered 9mm handgun was found in his pocket. Gibson plans to appeal the gun conviction, The Standard reported.

The DA's office rejected the cover-up claim, saying it played the footage for jurors and never asked the court to exclude it. SFPD said the DA's Independent Investigations Bureau found the force legally justified and that its own administrative review is standard procedure; the department told ABC7 all three officers remain employed. The police officers' union said the evidence had been weighed by a judge and jury.

What comes next

The public defender plans to file complaints with the city's Department of Police Accountability and to ask the state's Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to decertify the three officers, which would bar them from police work in California. Gibson is exploring a lawsuit, his attorneys said.