Supervisor urges probe of Sheriff’s Oversight Board president William Palmer

San Francisco’s Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board was created to watch the watchdog, appointing and supervising the city’s inspector general so residents could have a check on fraud, waste and abuse inside the sheriff system. Now the board’s president, William Palmer, is at the center of a new ethics fight, and Supervisor Stephen Sherrill is pressing the city’s inspector general to examine whether Palmer himself committed official misconduct.

Sherrill asked Inspector General Alex Shepard to investigate Palmer after Chronicle reporting raised questions about whether Palmer misused his office for personal benefit and obtained city benefits for which he was not qualified. If Shepard takes up the case and finds misconduct, the matter could trigger a lengthy removal process, putting another layer of City Hall oversight under strain just as public confidence in jail and deputy accountability is already delicate.

The stakes are especially sharp because the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board is supposed to supervise the Office of the Sheriff’s Inspector General. That board was created by a city charter amendment proposed by Supervisor Shamann Walton and approved by voters in November 2020. It held its first meeting in August 2022, and the city appointed Terry Wiley as San Francisco’s first sheriff inspector general in December 2023. Wiley assumed office in January 2024, then stepped down on January 10, 2025, before being sworn in as an Alameda County Superior Court judge five days later.

San Francisco now houses the inspector general role in the Controller’s Office, where it is charged with preventing, detecting and investigating fraud, waste and abuse by city employees, officials and those doing business with the city. That structure gives the office broad responsibility, but Palmer’s case raises a basic question about whether the safeguards around the board itself are strong enough when the person running it becomes the subject of scrutiny.

Palmer’s SF.gov profile identifies him as editor of the East County North Star newspaper and notes that he has served on the Reentry Council’s Sentencing Commission and the Sheriff Department Oversight Board. City records show he presided over board meetings on October 3, November 14 and December 5, 2025, then again on February 6, February 12, March 6 and May 1, 2026, giving him a visible role in the body now under a microscope.

The controversy around Palmer has widened beyond the boardroom. In 2024, the San Francisco Public Defender said Palmer was released in 2019 after a court ruled that his life sentence without parole was excessive, and the office said charges against him were dismissed in April 2024. Later reporting added allegations of repeated law-enforcement encounters and parole violations, intensifying calls from critics for him to resign. As of now, Shepard’s office had not said whether an investigation would move forward, leaving the city’s own oversight system facing a test of credibility.