Two security guards who responded to the assault on an elderly Chinese man collecting cans in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood have been suspended and put on administrative leave after a video showing how they handled the scene surfaced online.
“I would say that with all due respect to the rest of the officers, this does not depict how we conduct business or how we service our community,” Capt. Ladale Slocum of the Napa-based private security firm, Critical Intervention Patrol, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This was a situation that was very unfortunate and we are dealing with the matter internally.”
please share this with your friends & family. this is so low, the older man was just trying to make ends meet for his family. he didn’t deserve this. this is ignorant, inhumane, & sickening. i’m praying for this man and his family. if you have any information, please reach out. pic.twitter.com/545xHFwPm4
— nikc (@nicholaaasli) February 24, 2020
Instagram user @jackfroot, which was one of the first accounts to post the video, clarified that the uniformed men were not officers of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), as many had believed, and instead were employees of a full-service armed security company.
A gathering for “Community Unity and Healing” will be held today at 2 p.m. PST at Osceola Lane and La Salle Avenue where the incident occurred.
San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, Mayor London Breed and other city leaders will be in attendance.
🚨 now that the victim has been identified— @shamannwalton x @LondonBreed are holding this event where the elderly man was attacked in the Bayview 🚨 pic.twitter.com/5kIYwxvlvl
— Dion Lim (@DionLimTV) February 26, 2020
“I want to be clear: We don’t want to try and bait any kind of race war,” Mayor Breed told ABC7 News. “We live in the same community, we go to the same grocery stores, our kids go to the same schools. And it’s important that we bridge that gap.”
Dr. Connie Wun, the executive director of AAPI Women Lead, and Eddy Zheng, the founder and president of the New Breath Foundation, are calling for change and action.
“While social media outlets may want to make this a hate crime, Asian community leaders and members who have been historically working on Black and Asian relations oppose the impulse to criminalize communities,” Wun and Zheng said in a joint statement. “Instead, we understand the event as one that is rooted in issues related to poverty, limited resources, cultural conflicts, and systemic rage.”
Police have since identified the elderly man, whose name has been withheld. He is in his 70s, originally from Kaiping, China, has lived in San Francisco for six years, and supports himself and his wife by collecting cans. His wife also works in-home health care, according to KPIX 5.
Michael Wong of the Community Youth Center of San Francisco (CYCSF) says the man returned hard at work on Wednesday morning collecting cans on the streets of Bayview-Hunters Point. Wong revealed that the man has so far refused help and does not want to take donations because he is proud. He has also refused to fill out any paperwork for state and federal aid and benefits.
NextShark has reached out to CIP for further comment.
