Viral video of San Francisco man hosing homeless woman sparks outrage - The Washington Post

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San Francisco baker Edson Garcia was connected a transportation tally Monday greeting when, stopped astatine a postulation light, co-workers successful his car pointed to a commotion connected the different broadside of the street. He turned and saw a antheral utilizing a plot hose.

“My archetypal look astatine the idiosyncratic was helium was [spraying] the street,” Garcia said. “When I paid attraction closely, it was a lady. She was screaming, ‘No, no, no.’”

Garcia filmed portion of the confrontation, which shows a antheral spraying a stateless pistillate and her belongings with a hose arsenic she cries for him to stop. It rapidly went viral connected TikTok and Twitter, drawing condemnation from advocates and criticism of the man, a section creation assemblage proprietor who told a reporter on Tuesday that helium wasn’t atrocious for his actions.

Garcia told The Washington Post helium wasn’t amazed by the absorption to his video.

“It’s not right,” Garcia said. “You cannot bash that to humans.”

The San Francisco Chronicle identified the antheral successful Garcia’s video arsenic Collier Gwin, the proprietor of Foster Gwin Gallery, an creation assemblage connected the Montgomery Street artifact adjacent San Francisco’s Financial District that is shown successful the video.

Gwin appears successful Garcia’s video leaning against a railing arsenic helium sprays a pistillate for respective seconds with h2o from a hose. The woman, sitting against a histrion connected the other broadside of the sidewalk, cries retired and raises her hands. Gwin asks her, “Are you going to move?”

Gwin told the Chronicle that the pistillate was acting belligerent, refused to permission the country and turned implicit garbage cans that helium had to cleanable up. Gwin had fto the pistillate slumber successful his entryway for aggregate days and called societal services to get assistance for her, helium added.

“So americium I sorry? I’m lone atrocious that … my mode of helping her countlessly has gotten thing done,” Gwin said to the Chronicle.

Gwin did not respond to telephone calls, texts oregon an email from The Post on Tuesday evening.

The pistillate has not been identified. Garcia, a baker astatine a cafe a artifact from wherever the incidental took place, said helium recognized her arsenic an unhoused idiosyncratic who had been successful the vicinity for astir 2 years.

“She’s precise calm,” Garcia said. “She ever has a broom in her hand. She cleans wherever she sleeps. … [We] offered java to her, but she ever rejected.”

Officers responded to a telephone astir a imaginable battle and interviewed Gwin and the woman, though some parties declined further action, a constabulary spokesperson said. The San Francisco Street Crisis Response Team besides responded to the scene, provided work options to the pistillate and referred her for a follow-up visit, according to police.

Local advocates condemned the incidental connected societal media.

“Absolutely disgusting,” tweeted Peter Calloway, a San Francisco nationalist defender. “And a metaphor for the city’s effect to homelessness.”

In a associated statement connected Tuesday, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California denounced the “violent and inhumane” attack.

“Unhoused San Franciscans, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, are victims of unit acold much often than the mean San Franciscan,” the connection read.

It besides criticized the city, citing an ongoing lawsuit that alleges San Francisco officials violated the law rights of unhoused individuals during sweeps of stateless encampments, including respective during oregon earlier the devastating storms that battered the city.

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