San Francisco dismisses 8 criminal cases because of texts

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco prosecutors say they have already dismissed eight criminal cases as a result of racist and homophobic text messages involving 14 city police officers.

District attorney's spokesman Max Szabo said Friday the department did not immediately have details about the nature of the cases that were dismissed.

Prosecutors are reviewing an additional 3,000 cases because of the text messages.

District Attorney George Gascon announced this week that he was adding three former judges to a task force to determine whether bias by any of the officers connected to the text messages led to wrongful prosecutions.

The texts included slurs against blacks, Mexicans, Filipinos and gays, and featured officers and civilians repeatedly using the phrase "white power."