Police have arrested a suspect and are looking for at least one other in connection with the life-threatening robbery and attack against renowned San Francisco private investigator Jack Palladino, a source familiar with the investigation told the Chronicle on Saturday.
San Francisco police officers did not confirm the arrest or identify suspects in or out of custody.
76-year-old Palladino, whose clients included Hollywood and politically powerful celebrities, remained unconscious and on life support devices due to a serious head injury at a San Francisco hospital after the attack on Friday afternoon in front of his home in Haight-Ashbury.
The source who revealed the arrest spoke to The Chronicle on the condition of anonymity because the police have not yet released the information, but The Chronicle confirmed the information through prison records.
Palladino’s wife and also a detective, Sandra Sutherland, said the doctors told her “there will be no miracle” of recovery for her husband who, in any case, “would not have wanted to live” with profound cognitive impairment.
She said the assault that left him lying on the street was a reflection of her husband’s historic career.
“He went out the way he wanted to, in a dramatic confrontation with the forces of evil,” she said.
Private investigator Jack Palladino in 1982.
Eric Luse / Associated Press 1982Sutherland said she was upstairs in her yellow two-story Victorian house on Block 1400 on Page Street when her husband left the house with his camera, as he used to do in his spare time. She said he had left his phone and keys behind and speculated that he might have run away from home to photograph something he saw outside, an action that may have led to the attack.
Palladino’s stepson, Nick Chapman, said the investigator was assaulted by a man in the passenger seat of a passing car, who tried to steal the camera tied to Palladino. Chapman said the marks on the straps around Palladino’s neck showed signs of struggle.
“Someone in the passenger seat tried to grab him and split up,” he said. “He was dragged. He fell and hit his head. “
Chapman said his stepfather was briefly conscious while lying on the street, but soon fell unconscious.
The camera was recovered by the investigators, who probably examined it to see if it contained images that could assist in the investigation.
Palladino, who held private investigator license No. 79328, worked for nearly half a century on important cases involving Bill Clinton, Huey Newton, Robin Williams and Patricia Hearst.
He grew up in Boston and studied at UC Berkeley. He met Sutherland while the two investigated brutality and abuse in a Long Island prison. They opened their agency in San Francisco in 1977, which specializes in investigating fraud, medical malpractice and homicide. Palladino is a skilled sniper who is not armed because, he once said, they make investigators lazy.
Megan Cassidy and Steve Rubenstein are editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @megancassidy, @SteveRubeSF
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