Would this lawyer and friends not stick up for the invited choir ?
The key words here are "Police Department Lawyer". These folks are part of the SFPD "family" and they've got to live here as well. They will do enough to create some plausible deniability and then perhaps let it go at that. The leading perps are the sons of a prominent San Francisco physician, and also the SFPD has thus far shown itself poorly. Something has got to give. I think justice for the victims might be determined least important here.