San Francisco releases video of clash between supervisor, sheriff's cadet

SAN FRANCISCO - Surveillance video released Friday shows an incident at San Francisco City Hall in which a sheriff's cadet says Supervisor Shamann Walton berated him and used racial epithets after being asked to take off his belt at a security checkpoint. 

The video does not have audio, but it's clear the supervisor is angry over the security measure.

The cadet, Emare Butler, told KTVU the supervisor wouldn't take no for an answer.

"He goes, ‘I told you, I’m not going to take off my belt. You're not going to win this argument. Don't you know who I am?'" Butler recalled.

The cadet said Walton repeatedly used a racial slur and threatened him, complaining, "This is some n-word s-."

KTVU caught up the supervisor and board president at an eviction protest on Friday. He sidestepped questions.

"That has nothing to do with inaccuracies with the sheriff's department," Walton said. "You have my statement."

Asked if he would resign, Walton had this to say: "Of course not."

The supervisor has said he may be a target for retaliation because he has passed sheriff's oversight legislation. 

Butler doesn't agree.

"I just don't believe that if it was retaliation like he's trying to say that the shot would be to send a cadet to do it, I mean, I'm just a cadet," Butler said.

He says security is there for a reason. 

"And retaliation to me is not, ‘Sir, please take off your belt,’ I mean, I don't see how that can be taken as retaliation," Butler said.

The cadet says just because both men are Black doesn't make it right. 

"The whole solidarity between two Black men, there's no way that if the situation were reversed, and I was the one with that outburst, that he would have been OK with that," the cadet said.

Butler said he wants the supervisor to speak truthfully about what happened. 

"At the end of the day, we're both men, we're both grown adults, I should be respected, just like anyone else," he said.