San Francisco police chief assures public that hosing incident outside gallery under investigation
SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco chief of police on Wednesday assured the public outraged over a gallery owner spraying a homeless woman with a hose earlier this week that the incident is being investigated.
Video captured the gallery owner -- identified as Collier Gwin, owner and operator of Foster Gwin Gallery on Montgomery Street in the city's Financial District -- spraying a homeless woman with a garden hose late Monday morning.
Gwin has since spoke to a number of news media outlets, including CBS Bay Area, to apologize for the incident in the wake of multiple death threats.
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SFPD Chief Bill Scott addressed the incident on Twitter Wednesday in addition to speaking to the press. He noted that the incident was being handled by the SFPD Investigations Bureau.
"I understand that there is frustration out there and there is an impulse to act. Right now, what we need is civility. If you are frustrated with a situation, please do not act on your anger," the thread on Twitter read. "Take a step back and call the police so we can help. That is why we are here."
During an interview, Scott also called on locals not to get inflamed by the video.
"It's also the people that are seeing these videos that have now gone viral. Don't act on your anger and frustration because you're only going to make matters worse," Scott said.
Wednesday, there was an SFPD cruiser parked outside of the gallery where the incident happened.
The Monday incident has many people -- including San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin -- demanding charges be brought against Gwin.
Peskin, whose district includes the Jackson Square gallery, says the woman is getting treatment from the public health department.
State Senator Scott Weiner said the water-spraying video epitomizes the city's failures.
"We're creating a tinderbox out there. People are incredibly frustrated with how things are playing out on our streets," said Wiener. "And we have not done enough to expand shelter, to expand mental health beds. I know the mayor is working very hard to do that, but we have to do more and we have to do it faster."
Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP, called the video "an immensely disturbing image of violence and inhumanity."
"They (the images) are especially disturbing as we approach the holiday marking Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday," his statement read. "As a Black man who was active in the fight for Civil Rights in the 50s and 60s, the scene was chillingly reminiscent of the images of 'Bull' Conner turning the fire-hoses on Black protesters in Birmingham in 1963. Those images, broadcast on national television, were a powerful wake-up call for change and led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act the following year."
"The images in San Francisco today must be a similar wake-up call for change. It's past time for the City to fully enact the Care Not Cash program that I first proposed when I was on the Board of Supervisors."
