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Almost every day for weeks, I received emails, social media posts, or in-person requests asking why nothing happened to the man with the red glasses captured in a viral video seemingly admitting to having scanned signed petitions to qualify a recall of three school board members for the ballot.
Well, finally, there is an update. The police department’s special investigations division has completed its investigation into this case, as well as another in which police cited a woman suspected of bodily harm after she allegedly threw a pen at a woman collecting signatures for call back the district attorney. The ministry presented the two cases for prosecution.
District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office has referred the cases to the California Attorney General’s office, which has accepted the two and will handle the prosecutions, according to Police Department spokesman Matt Dorsey.
“Both investigations are open and active and will not be officially closed until they are closed by arrest,” Dorsey said.
It is sad that our civil discourse has reached such low levels and that San Francisco, which prides itself on being compassionate and enlightened, has joined the kind of immature attacks we more often associate with supporters of Donald Trump.
The best way to push back a recall of a public servant you support is to campaign on their behalf, organize rallies to support them, speak out on social media, donate to their campaign, and donate. volunteering. And to be clear, people supporting the recall of school board members and Boudin can be just as rude on Twitter and elsewhere. Grow up, everyone.
Some San Franciscans have questioned why it is taking so long to process cases, but Police Chief Bill Scott said the department still takes incidents seriously.
“Any time you disturb the democratic process, it is serious,” he said. “It’s the voice of the people we strive with. We have completed our investigation and we will let the rest of the system do its job.
The attorney general’s office did not return requests for comment.
In the May 30 incident, public school father Kit Lam was collecting signatures at the Clement Street Farmers’ Market to qualify a recall from school board members Gabriela López, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga for the ballot.
Lam said a man in red glasses walked up to his table and signed the petition, although it is not clear whether the man signed his real name. Lam turned his back for a moment, then turned to see his notepad with the missing petitions – and the man tossing it under a nearby car. A woman started filming the angry encounter and the man in the red glasses appeared to recognize on camera that he had taken the petitions before returning them.
“You got me!” the man said.
Police identified a suspect in their presentation of the case to prosecutors, but The Chronicle does not name felony suspects if they have not been arrested or charged. The Jewish Vocational Service in San Francisco announced last month that it had fired an employee after determining he interfered with the school board’s collection of recall petitions. The organization would not name the employee.
Police have recommended that the suspect be charged with a violation of California’s electoral code, but it will be up to the attorney general to decide whether and how to charge the case. Police arrived at the scene after the man with the red glasses left, and it is common in such cases for the police to work with the prosecution to present an arrest warrant to a judge.
Lam called the developments “good news.” As of Tuesday, the school board member recall campaign had garnered 33,000 signatures. He must deliver 51,325 valid signatures from registered voters in San Francisco by September 7.
In another incident on June 26, police responded to West Portal, where a woman collecting signatures to qualify a Boudin recall for the ballot said another woman asked to sign the petition, but the then disfigured and threw the pen in the face of the signature collector. A photo in the petition shows blue ink scrawled over the signatures of four other people and the big letter words “Eat and die”.
Police cited the suspect, identified as Lisabeth Maria Consuelo Collins, for assault and battery at the scene and released her, according to Officer Robert Rueca, another spokesperson for the police department. After her release, she again confronted the signature collector and threatened her with violence, but officers could not locate her again, police said.
Andrea Shorter, spokesperson for the recall campaign, said his team had collected 32,000 signatures and had an Oct. 25 deadline. Another Boudin recall effort led by former Republican mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg has garnered 46,000 signatures and has a deadline of Aug. 1. 11.
Greenberg’s campaign has also received its fair share of nastiness. He has received many mailed packages that appear to have signed petitions inside, but are full of false papers. They are sent from obviously fake names, some of them offensive. Greenberg said he shared the information with the US Postal Inspection Service.
Nancy Tung, a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, drafted a business resolution for July 28.
He calls on the committee to condemn “any illegal action linked to interference in the democratic process”, to urge all Democrats to cooperate in the investigation of such crimes, to avoid “inadvertently contributing to a political culture which could encourage such unlawful acts “and to urge law enforcement agencies to prosecute offenses” in a manner consistent with the objective of protecting our democracy. “
Tung, an Alameda County district attorney who lost to Boudin in the district attorney race, said, “I don’t know what we can do to bring civility back to the speech except to condemn this kind of behavior, and illegal behavior should be easy to condemn. . “
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight typically appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @hknightsf
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