SFPD

Memorial for cyclist marred by SFPD harassment

Sasha Cuttler
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A memorial and informational event this morning at the 6th and Folsom corner where a bicyclist was fatally run over by a truck last week was marred by a tense and unsettling confrontation with an SFPD sergeant who showed up to block the bike lane with his cruiser, lecture the cyclists, and blame the victim.

The event was organized by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to raise awareness of the incident and that dangerous intersection and to call for the city to make improvements. It included friends and co-workers of 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac, who was riding in the Folsom Street bike lane on the morning of Aug. 14 when an unidentified delivery truck driver turned right onto 6th Street, across her path, and ran her over.

SFPD Sgt. Dennis Toomer tells the Guardian that the department has completed the traffic incident report, information from which can only be shared with the parties involved, but that the investigation of the fatality is still ongoing and will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for review once it’s done.

But SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum said that SFPD Sgt. Richard Ernst, who showed up at the event a little before 9am, had already drawn his own conclusions about the crash and showed up to make his apparent disdain for “you people,” bicyclists, disturbingly clear.

Shahum said that she tried to be diplomatic with Ernst and asked him to please move his patrol car out of the bike lane and into an available parking space that was right next to it, saying that it presented an unnecessary hazard to bicyclists riding past.

But she said Ernst refused to do so for almost 10 minutes, telling the group that he has “a right” to leave his car than and that he was “making the point that bicyclists need to move around” cars parked in bike lanes, according to Shahum’s written account, which she prepared to file a report about the incident with the Office of Citizens Complaints.

“He then told me explicitly that he ‘would not leave until’ I ‘understood’ that ‘it was the bicyclist’s fault.’ This was shocking to hear, as I was told just a day ago by Commander [Mikail] Ali that the case was still under investigation and no cause had yet been determined,” Shahum wrote.

And apparently Ernst didn’t stop at denouncing Le Moullac for causing her own death, in front of people who are still mourning that death. Shahum said Ernst also blamed the other two bicyclist deaths in SF this year on the cyclists, and on “you people” in the SFBC for not teaching cyclists how to avoid cars.

“I told him the SF Bicycle Coalition does a significant amount of safety work educating people biking and driving about sharing the road, and that I’d be happy to share more information with him. I again urged him to move his car out of the bike lane. He again refused, saying it was his right and he wasn’t moving until I ‘understood,’” Shahum wrote.

Shahum said there were multiple witness to the incident, including three television reporters who were there to cover the event.

“In addition to the Sgt’s inappropriate and dangerous behavior of parking his car in the bike lane and blocking safe passage for people bicycling by, it was deeply upsetting to see him unnecessarily disrupt and add tension to what was already an emotional and difficult time for many people who lamented this sad loss of life,” Shahum wrote.

Asked about the actions and attitudes expressed today by Ernst, who we could not reach for comment, Sgt. Toomer told us he “cannot talk about personnel issues.”

Compounding Ernst’s insensitive and judgmental approach today, it also appears the SFPD may have failed to properly investigate this incident, which Shahum and the SFBC have been tracking closely, and she said the SFPD told her that there were no video surveillance tapes of the collision.

After today’s event, SFBC’s Marc Caswell decided to check in at businesses on the block to see if they had any video cameras aimed at the intersection, and he found an auto body business at the intersection whose workers said they did indeed have revealing footage of the crash that the SFPD hasn’t requested, but which SFBC today delivered to investigators.

“He had the time to come harass us as a memorial, but he didn’t have the time to see if anyone had footage of this incident. It’s very unsettled,” Shahum told us.

Whoever was ultimately at fault in this collision and others that have injured or killed bicyclists in San Francisco, today’s confrontation demonstrates an unacceptable and dangerous insensitivity and animosity toward bicyclists in San Francisco, which was also on display in the comments to the post that I wrote last week about the incident.

It’s fine to debate what happens on the streets of San Francisco, and you can even harbor resentments toward bicyclists and believe that we deserve your ire. But when you endanger people’s lives to make a point, or when you threaten violence against vulnerable road users, then you’ve gone too far.

Yes, let’s talk about what happens on the roads and how to improve behaviors, but let’s not forget our humanity in the process.  

One thousand surveillance cams in SF and counting

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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If you walk through densely populated commercial corridors on a regular basis, chances are you’re being recorded. Based on information compiled by CommunityCam, a data visualization project plotting the location of security cameras, there are at least 1,100 surveillance devices installed throughout San Francisco – and possibly many more.

Billed as a “community service initiative” designed to make neighborhoods safer, the CommunityCam platform was developed by VideoSurveillance.com, a proprietor of IP-connected CCTV systems that has served customers ranging from California Pacific Medical Center to Harvard University to Lockheed Martin.

The web-based platform reveals the precise locations of visible security cameras throughout the city, incorporating a crowd-sourcing component that allows anyone to plot the location of a camera.

San Francisco neighborhoods with the highest concentration of surveillance cameras include the Financial District, the areas around North Beach and Chinatown, and the Marina, the data shows. The vast majority of the cameras are privately owned, but the map plots all visible security cameras regardless of whether they’re operated by commercial interests or public agencies.

VideoSurveillance.com president Josh Daniels, a Portland resident who previously lived in San Francisco, launched the effort, which he described as an effort to improve public safety.

“The CommunityCam network of cameras gives community residents a way to investigate when an incident occurs,” Daniels said in an interview with the Guardian. Noting that accidents such as cyclist collisions or physical assaults were common in San Francisco streets, he said, “it’s just impossible to investigate these kinds of incidents in San Francisco” without the presence of security cameras. He called the project “a way to let people know that video surveillance can be used in very positive ways.”

While Daniels is not formally partnering with police, he described law enforcement as  “very interested in the locations of the cameras” and said he’d met with law enforcement groups in San Francisco as well as neighborhood groups, landlords, and building managers. He added that across the board, police agencies are “very strapped from a financial resources standpoint,” so his project can serve as a tool for those agencies without additional cost.

And collaboration with law enforcement could expand further down the road, Daniels said. “In the future there’s potential to expand the program and expand the services to give law enforcement access to privately held cameras,” Daniels said, “but that’s a long way off.” Media representatives from SFPD had not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment by press time.

While the CommunityCam platform introduces a new level of transparency to private security systems installed throughout the city, it also raises a number of questions. While it’s billed as a public safety program designed to illustrate the useful attributes of CCTV, CommunityCam also serves to illustrate the growing surveillance infrastructure in public space, a phenomenon that necessarily raises questions about the erosion of privacy in a hyper-connected world.

The early-stage data-mapping project also presents questions about how this tool could ultimately be developed and utilized, particularly if it’s used toward developing a broader or more centralized surveillance infrastructure. If public safety officials or private security entities use the data to identify gaps where public space isn’t being monitored, it could be used to justify the installation of still more cameras.

Earlier this year, the Guardian spotlighted San Francisco’s pilot project testing out “smart” streetlights that would be wired into a centralized IP-connected system, with possible future uses as street surveillance. We’ve also kept an eye on the San Francisco Police Department’s efforts to collect surveillance footage from local bars.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates have flagged concerns about the proliferation of CCTV cameras in public spaces. Privacy advocates focused on CCTV are particularly active in the UK, where studies suggest the average Londoner is caught on camera 300 times per day on average, and new technologies such as cameras that incorporate license plate readers have been adopted in smaller cities.

Daniels said he’s very familiar with these concerns, but was dismissive of the idea that security cameras in public space presented any sort of encroachment on personal privacy. “My own opinion is that I don’t believe I have an expectation to privacy in a public setting,” he said.

While Daniels noted that CommunityCam is the first-ever attempt to plot security cameras in an interactive online format, it’s not actually true. Last summer, European privacy activists who wished to draw attention to the proliferation of CCTV cameras led a game called “camspotting” in Brussels, part of an international activism effort known as “1984 Action Day.” After going out and logging camera locations, they plotted them on an online map.

After Oscar, after Trayvon…

Michael Redmond
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rebecca@sfbg.com

Even before Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson picked up the phone on Feb. 27, 2012, he wasn’t having an easy day. His nephew, Oscar Grant, would have celebrated his 26th birthday on that date if he had not been killed by a gunshot wound on Jan. 1, 2009.

Grant was shot by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle while lying face down on a train platform, an incident that was caught on film, prompted riots in Oakland, drew international scrutiny, and became the subject of the award-winning film Fruitvale Station by Oakland filmmaker Ryan Coogler.

In the years since Grant’s death, Johnson and his wife, Beatrice X, founded the Oscar Grant Foundation to develop a support network for families who’ve lost loved ones due to police violence. It was his involvement in this work that led Johnson to be contacted that day, and informed that a 17-year-old boy named Trayvon Martin had been gunned down in Florida one day earlier.

It wasn’t a police shooting but nevertheless, “We knew at this point that we had to go to Florida,” Johnson recalled. “What we’ve decided is that whenever a family experienced that, we would definitely try and get to them.”

Fast forward to July 13, almost exactly three years after violent protests erupted in Oakland following the news that Mehserle, who was charged with second degree murder, had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter instead. A new wave of demonstrations flared up as word spread that George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Martin, had been acquitted.

“We weren’t surprised,” Johnson, who returned to Florida last month to observe the jury selection process for Zimmerman’s trial, told the Guardian. “But it was still painful.”

The verdict in this high-profile case has brought discussions about racial profiling and unequal treatment in the criminal justice system to the forefront. Even President Barack Obama touched on the theme in comments to White House reporters on July 19, saying, “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”

At the national level, new findings on “implicit bias” — unconscious prejudices that research in psychology has shown can persist in individuals (including poorly trained police officers), even if they consciously reject racial stereotypes — has started to inform policy debates around racial profiling.

“Policy needs to recognize that implicit bias exists,” Maya Wiley, founder and president of the New York City-based Center for Social Inclusion, told us. “Rep. John Conyers introduced a bill last year to prohibit racial profiling in law enforcement. That bill, if made law, would collect data on stops by race, as well as provide resources for training. That is a step in the right direction.”

But things get complicated, Wiley says, because “research shows that people of color, women, the elderly, may all experience discrimination as a result of implicit bias. There is no remedy in the law for this. … I think what is important now is to fight Stand Your Ground Laws which empower people to act on their implicit biases.”

At a July 16 rally held on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, Rev. Malcolm Byrd, pastor of San Francisco’s First A.M.E. Zion Church, illustrated his point about racial profiling by donning a hoodie and sneakers at the rally.

“I wanted to come looking suspicious,” he explained. “I wanted to give you an image that America has of young black men. I look suspicious. This is my country. I love my country. Yet, I look suspicious.”

Last year, Mayor Ed Lee’s proposal to introduce a stop-and-frisk policy, which would have allowed police officers to randomly stop individuals who appeared to be suspicious in an effort to get weapons off the streets, was abandoned in the face of widespread community concern.

Officers who undergo training at the San Francisco Police Department Academy must complete 52 hours of “cultural diversity” training, according to SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Dennis Toomer, which includes a mandatory four-hour intensive geared toward preventing racial profiling. State law mandates just 16 hours for such training for law enforcement agencies, Toomer told us.

But despite supplemental police training and the efforts of grassroots organizations that carefully monitor police activity, the Bay Area has witnessed a number of fatal shootings at the hands of police since Grant’s death, and many draw a link between these cases and the broader issue of racial profiling.

When asked about the outreach efforts of the Oscar Grant Foundation, Johnson began to rattle off a long list of names — mostly young black men, from places ranging from Oakland to Vallejo to Stockton to San Leandro — who were killed by police, and whose families his organization has reached out to.

They have also been in touch with several families in New York City who lost loved ones in similar situations, Johnson said. In many cases, the individuals were killed despite being unarmed, and officers later explained their actions by saying they’d mistakenly believed the shooting victims had firearms.

After several years of taking an up-close look at the investigative and legal proceedings that unfold in the aftermath of officer-involved shootings, Johnson has reached the conclusion that from case to case, “The playbook is pretty much the same. The officer first alleges he felt threatened — it’s all about the thought process of the officer. It’s always found to be justifiable because the officer feared for his life.”

One long-term goal of the Oscar Grant Foundation is to build up a coalition that can mount a meaningful challenge to the California Peace Officers Bill of Rights, a law enacted some 30 years ago that affords special protections for law enforcement officers facing misconduct charges. Johnson and others are critical of provisions such as officers’ rights to keep confidential information out of their personnel files, which can prevent significant information from being disclosed during a criminal trial. Meanwhile, others throughout the Bay Area seem primed to push for change in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict. “On Sunday, every black church in the nation was talking about what? Trayvon Martin, and what we need to do,” Andrea Shorter, a member of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, said during the July 16 rally. “Two weeks ago, and we were all standing here as San Franciscans to rejoice … because we knew that LGBT people could be treated as first class citizens. The job is not done.” San Francisco NAACP President Rev. Amos Brown, who organized the rally, vowed that his organization “will push for a civil suit to bring this Zimmerman gentlemen to justice.” The national NAACP is petitioning U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to open a civil rights case against Zimmerman. Sups. London Breed, Malia Cohen, Jane Kim, and David Campos also delivered speeches at the rally. “For the first time in my life, after growing up and going to funeral after funeral after funeral after funeral, of all boys and black men throughout my life, I see people in this audience who are not African American, who are just as hurt as I am, who are just as sick of this as I am,” Breed said. “And we are all in this together. We have got to work together if we want to change it.”

Parents, behind bars

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By Ross Mirkarimi

OPINION Nearly 50 percent of the 2.7 million people incarcerated in US prisons and jails are mothers and fathers. In San Francisco, about 40 percent of the prisoners are parents. For their children, the punishment does not fit the crime.

Federal and state recidivism registers at 78 percent; locally the rate is 65 percent and dropping. If we’re serious about breaking the cycle of incarceration, we must get serious about restoring the family ties of the incarcerated.

Studies support what common sense suggests — strengthening the parent-child bond reduces recidivism. It also reduces the prospect that children of the incarcerated are more likely to violate the law. While maintaining appropriate safety and legal protocols, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department is reexamining policies that invariably damage or strain relationships between an inmate parent and child, starting with birth. In honor of Mother’s Day, on May 9, the Community Works Jail Arts Program, with our department, converted the lobby of the SF women’s jail into a temporary gallery of art created by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated mothers.

That provided a warm environment to announce a policy first in California: The Birth Justice Project, designed to affirm the reproductive rights of all incarcerated women and provide prenatal and postpartum care during the transformative experience of pregnancy, birth and parenthood. With the stewardship of Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB/GYN from UCSF, along with the Department of Public Health, Zellerbach Foundation, and our volunteer doulas (professional birth assistants), we’re radically distancing ourselves from the barbaric attitude of 33 states that still shackle women during labor. Rather, we seek to nurture the inimitable bond between mother and child.

While most jails and prisons shun a lactation policy, we’ve unveiled our pro-lactation program. Breast pumps, refrigeration, and delivery are provided around the clock, facilitated by our jail health professionals. While the arcane national practice is to separate baby and mother after the third day of birth, we’re working to maintain the connection. If we can’t do it through diversion (alternatives to incarceration), then we’ll continue to assess our facility in allowing mother and baby to stay together. I look forward to promoting breast feeding in San Francisco’s jails.

For children of incarcerated parents, the absence of a mother is the loss of a primary caregiver. Ninety percent of incarcerated fathers in the US report that while away, their children live with the child’s mother. In contrast, only 28 percent of incarcerated mothers report that their children live with their father. Routinely, her children are cared for by a grandparent or relative — and about 11 percent are placed in foster care. Many children are bounced from caregiver to caregiver during their parent’s incarceration.

These disruptions to a child’s life negatively affect their social and mental development. Acknowledging the sense of disconnection experienced by children whose parents are incarcerated also means we must grapple with the emotional poverty that increases the likelihood of criminal behavior. In San Francisco, we’re taking steps to bridge this disconnection by reforming visitation policies to facilitating regular contact between children and incarcerated parents.

The people in our jails will eventually be released and will return to communities that historically have been underserved. We’re trying to intensify resources toward exit planning for newly incarcerated parents and guardians. Depending on individuals cases, that could include a regiment of parenting classes, substance abuse and mental health treatment, domestic violence counseling, reunification counseling for parent and child, reading and writing comprehension, high school completion, life skills such as financial literacy, and vocational training.

Many people don’t know what the Sheriff’s Department does or the difference between us and the SFPD; we’ve launched a monthly e-newsletter to keep the public informed. To sign up or contact us at: Ross.Mirkarimi@SFgov.org

Ross Mirkarimi is sheriff of San Francisco

Community awaits benefits as Lennar finally breaks ground in Hunters Point

Sasha Cuttler
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More than five years after San Francisco voters approved a massive redevelopment plan for the Hunters Point Shipyard and much the southeast part of the city — giving Lennar Corp., the country’s biggest home builder, the largest tracts of open land in the city — that project is now finally, slowly, getting underway.

But activists who have been following the project say the city is getting played by Lennar because of an agreement that lacks performance standards and has allowed the company to drag its feet to maximize its profits despite an affordable housing crisis in the city. And some community members say Lennar hasn’t lived up to promises of jobs and other benefits.

“The modus operandi of Lennar is bait and switch and delay,” Saul Bloom of Arc Ecology, who consulted on this development deal for the Redevelopment Agency before his contract was dropped in 2010 after publicly raising concerns, told us. Bloom and his firm have decades of experience analyzing complex development deals, and he has been tracking Lennar’s pattern of behavior around the country. 

Bloom said that when Lennar cut its initial deals with then-Mayor Willie Brown and other local officials in 1997, the company said it needed no external financing and that it would build housing affordable to Hunters Point residents, including rentals. Since then, the deal has gotten steadily better for the company and worse for San Francisco, and the groundbreaking date has been repeatedly pushed back.

“The city was not smart enough to build in liquidated damage and a performance schedule and that kind of thing,” Bloom said. “Lennar tells them what they want and the city tends to roll over, and there’s been no pushback.”

When Lennar ended up needing financing after all, the project stood by while a $1.7 billion deal with the China Development Bank Corp. was structured in 2012. Despite Mayor Lee personally participating in the quest for capital in China alongside the developer, the deal quickly collapsed. It is yet to be seen how Lennar will satisfy its commitments in the Bayview and at its separate Treasure Island site since the plug was pulled on the loan deal.

Lennar Urban Director of Community Affairs Cheryl Smith referred our questions to communications consultant David Satterfield of G.F. Bunting, who said that he passed them on to Lennar officials and, “They don’t have anything to say.” The Mayor’s Office also has not responded to our request for comment on the issues that Bloom is raising.

With a weak agreement and a lack of political will to push the company to expedite construction of affordable housing, Bloom said Lennar has simply waited for housing prices to increase and for other developers to lead the way in gentrifying Bayview Hunters Point before moving forward on the nearly 1,400 acres of land it controls in San Francisco — an area equivalent in size to the Presidio.

“Their incentive is to wait for the property values to rise…Lennar understands how much this land is worth,” Bloom said. “What Lennar has done is crafted a strategically smart box that the city is in.”

Yet after years of delays, the project did officially get underway last week (Wed/27), with a well-attended hilltop ceremony.  Mayor Ed Lee, former Mayor Willie Brown, District 10 Sup. Malia Cohen, and Cohen’s predecessor, Sophie Maxwell, joined Lennar Urban President Kofi Bonner to speak at the long-anticipated event.

Lennar’s local subsidiary, Lennar Urban, unveiled a master plan to convert the land to a brand new mixed-use community. At the ceremony, Brown remarked that “there is no other piece of soil that is as lucrative” as the Bayview Hunters Point peninsula and that it promises to be the “ideal place to live.”

The Hunters Point Shipyard, occupies roughly 500 acres of southeastern San Francisco and when taken together with neighboring Candlestick Point and parts of Bayview, it is the largest single tract of land in San Francisco designated for redevelopment. The other big redevelopment site in the city, Treasure Island, is also controlled by Lennar and its partners.

A former naval base, the shipyard was transferred to the city in 2004. Most naval operations there had ceased in 1974 and commercial uses declined in the 20 years that followed, steadily displacing black workers employed on the premises.

Affordable housing and job creation for neighborhood locals were two major stipulations in the ballot measure San Francisco voters approved in 2008. The “Bayview Jobs, Parks, and Housing Initiative,” however, entrusted that goal fulfillment almost wholly to Lennar and Bloom now questions whether that trust was well placed.

Phase 1 of the project will consist of construction of 1,400 new residential units in the shipyard, approximately 30 percent of which will one day be affordable housing. But Bloom said that Lennar has delayed construction of the affordable units until after much of the more lucrative market rate housing is done.

At the event, Bonner enthusiastically outlined the goal of having 800 of 1,100 market rate homes in this first phase constructed and occupied within 36 months time and Mayor Lee opened his remarks with the celebratory chant “Welcome to The Bayview! We need housing for everybody!”

But Bloom said that the city is rapidly gentrifying as Lennar waits to meet its affordable housing obligations, noting that the city was 11 percent African-American when Lennar cuts its first deal to develop Hunters Point in 1997, and that population is now 4 percent and falling.

Reconstruction of the Alice Griffith Public Housing Project will help Lennar to satisfy its affordable housing quota. Announcements of these plans garnered large applause from community activists in attendance, though they are slated for the project’s second phase, which likely won’t begin for years.

“They could build all of Alice Griffith on Parcel A, but they’re not going to do it,” Bloom said. “When is this community going to get what was promised to them?”

A group of picketers from Aboriginal Blackman United (ABU) was contained by SFPD at the bottom of the hill during the afternoon’s proceedings. As black town cars chauffeured officials to the event site, the protesters’ cries were drowned out by the music of Miles Davis playing from stage speakers.

ABU was protesting non-inclusive hiring practices at the shipyard site. Members, who were outnumbered by police 2-to-1, argued that they were being wrongfully barred access to the ceremony above and by the event’s conclusion, they had been relocated from the main intersection at Innes Avenue and Donahue Street to a side access road.

Job creation was trumpeted generally in the afternoon’s speeches, with Sup. Cohen applauding the public-private partnership between Lennar and Bayview organizations and Mayor Lee praising the project for “honoring labor and honoring local residents.” However, ABU’s founder and president, James Richards, said “we’re not getting the jobs or the contracts that the community people are supposed to get and that’s why we’re out here.”

Though ABU wants to see local residents of color placed in many of the new positions opening up, workers in the community have only been promised good faith consideration rather than actual job guarantees by the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, which is in charge of staffing the project. Attempts to reach Michael Theriault, Secretary-General of the Council, were unsuccessful.

Bloom said Lennar has insulated itself from community criticism with an agreement that promises money to community groups that refrain from publicly criticizing Lennar or the project. He said Lennar has followed a similar pattern here as it has elsewhere, using its clout and political contacts to get lucrative redevelopment deals, then using delay and bait-and-switch tactics to make those projects more lucrative. He cited Lennar’s Mare Island project, which is now in bankruptcy, and its massive Newhall Ranch project north of Los Angeles.

In that latter deal, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System lost the $970 million it paid Lennar in 2007 for part of its stake in Newhall Land Development Co., which went bankrupt when the housing market crashed the next year. But Lennar built in an option to reclaim the shares, which a bankruptcy judge allowed Lennar to do in 2009 for just $138 million.

Bloom said that deal is typical behavior for a manipulative company that has a history of acting contrary to the public interest, but in which local political officials have given tremendous control over the city’s future.

“We remain skeptical about their commitment to getting it done,” Bloom said of the affordable housing that Lennar has promised. “What we’d like to see is some real action on the promises that were made to the public.”

Supreme Court same-sex marriage decisions: DOMA invalidated, Prop 8 case dismissed, SF reacts [UPDATED]

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Supreme Court same-sex marriage decisions: DOMA invalidated, Prop 8 case dismissed, SF reacts [UPDATED]

Watch this space throughout the day for breaking news on the decision and reactions. Tonight there will be a celebration of the Court’s decisions at Castro and Market Streets at 6:30pm. (Join  the Guardian beforehand, 6-9 at the Pilsner in the castro, at its annual pre-Pride event.) 

DOMA INVALIDATED

The Supreme Court released its ruling this morning that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriage, “is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”

“DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty,” according to the majority opinion. “DOMA’s principal effect is to identify a subset of state sanctioned marriages and make them unequal.” The Court voted 5-4, with Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, as the decisive vote along the usual liberal/conservative lines. You can read the full opinion here. 

This means that same-sex marriages performed in states that have legalized such marriages will be recognized by federal law.  

PROP 8 DISMISSED ON STANDING

As for Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Prop 8 case, it was dismissed on standing, due to the fact that the State of California refused to defend the case that would uphold Prop 8 (which denied same-sex marriage).That meant private citizens were left to defend a state statute, which was unprecedented, and the Court refused to rule on those grounds.

“We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here,” the majority Court statement (which broke along the typical 5-4 line) said. That means there is no specific decision from the Court regarding Prop 8, and the previous ruling, by Judge Vaughan Walker and upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court, that invalidated Prop 8 as discriminatory, stands.

This may mean that same-sex marriages in California can resume as early as July.

You can read the full Prop 8 ruling here.

Scene this morrning at SF City Hall, with Mayor Ed Lee and Lt. Gov. Newsom. Photo by Dan Bernal.

[UPDATE] REACTIONS AT CITY HALL

Steven T. Jones reports from SF City Hall:

City Hall was totally packed at 7am when the US Supreme Court convened — tons of journalists, lots of couples, many signs in the crowd. Two screens were set up, one with a live blog from court chamber, the other with the CNN live feed. Huge cheers erupted at 7:11 when the decision was announced striking down DOMA and forcing the federal government to recognize the rights of same-sex married couples.  Then at 7:38, when the Prop 8 statement came down, the room went nuts. 

A moment later, an array of current and former city officials appeared at the top of the City Hall main staircase. Mayor Ed Lee and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom escorted a fragile Phyllis Lyon down the stairs — she, along with the late Del Martin, were the first same-sex couple to get legally married in California in 2004 — flanked by the rest of the city family, all with big smiles.

“Welcome to the people’s house of San Francisco,” Mayor Lee said, thanking the crowd “for sharing in this historic moment.”

“It feels good to have love triumph over ignorance,” he said.

At 7:44, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Chief Deputy City Attorney Terry Stewart, who had been on the City Hall steps addressed reporters’ question on the legal details of the ruling, joined the crew to sustained applause as Lee recognized them. He then introduced Newsom, who in 2004 as San Francisco mayor allowed same-sex marriages to be performed, as “one person who used the power of this office to make history and show his love for the city.”

“San Francisco is not a city of dreamers, but a city of doers,” Newsom said. “Here we don’t just tolerate diversity, we celebrate our diversity.” He thanked Herrera and everyone who contributed to this moment. “It’s people with a true commitment to equality that brought us here.”

Newsom introduced Kate Kendall with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who has led the coalition of groups that have push for marriage equality. She looked around the crowd and said, “Fuck you, Prop 8!”

The crowd roared, and she said that she had scanned the room for children, and promised to “put a dollar in the swear jar” if necessary. But she said that, “We have lived for too many years under that stigmatizing piece of crap.”

Then Herrera took the podium, turned to Newsom, and said, “Now you can say, ‘Whether you like it or not!'” — a joking reference to Newsom’s same-sex marriage rallying cry, which some blamed for boosting the anti-same-sex marriage cause.

“We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Gavin Newsom’s leadership,” Herrera continued. ““I remember in 2004 when people were saying it was too fast, too soon, too much.”

But today, that long effort has been vindicated, Now, he said, “It’s about changing the hearts and minds of people and educating them.” He also pledged to continue the fight that began here in City Hall more than nine years ago: “We will not rest until we have marriage equality throughout this country.”

Gavin Newsom being interviewed inside City Hall. Photo by Steve Jones

Finally Stewart, who has argued cases related to San Francisco’s stand before both the US and California Supreme Courts, praised both the Prop. 8 and DOMA rulings and the precedents they set. “In the DOMA case decision, the Supreme Court expressed a stong equal protection philosophy…that will help legalize same sex marriage in other states.”

Three members of the Board of Supervisors were also invited by Kendell to address the huge City Hall crowd: Board President David Chiu and Sups. David Campos and Scott Wiener, the only two current supervisors who are gay.

Chiu noted that the bust of slain Sup. Harvey Milk is prominently positioned outside the Board Chambers, a reminder of the long struggle for gay rights that San Franciscans have led. “That work lives on today,” he said.

He added the hope that the work done here will ripple out of across the country because, he said, “As goes San Francisco, so goes California, so goes the rest of the country.”

Campos, an attorney who has long been in a committed relationship, said, “It’s a very emotional moment for those of us who are part of the LGBT community.” He said this Supreme Court ruling is the first time it has really acknowledged “that we are people and we have dignity,” and that the rulings sends a clear message to Congress that legislation like DOMA is unconstitionally discriminatory.

Wiener praised the resilience of the LGBT community, from the early days of enduring the AIDS crisis and fighting for federal support through the current campaign for marriage equality. And he cheered the fact that, “Those marriages that we see under the rotunda [in City Hall] will get a little more diverse.”

11:30 AM UPDATE: Style and substance

While Newsom strutted around like a proud peacock in front of City Hall — clearly the leading man in this epic story with the happy ending, much in demand by the television crews — Herrera and Stewart briefed various reporters on the details of the case that they had just won.

Gavin Newsom outside City Hall. Photo by Steve Jones.

“I wanted a merits ruling, but a standing ruling is a victory too,” Herrera told us, making the distinction between the court ruling that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional on the grounds of equal protection under the law — which it did not do — and the 5-4 ruling it did issue: that those who appealed the Ninth Circuit Court ruling invalidating Prop. 8 lack proper legal standing to do so.

The standing ruling leaves same-sex marriage opponents more wiggle room to argue that the ruling might only apply to the couples named in the suit, or in just the counties that took part, which also included Alameda and Los Angeles, positions they were already signaling in press statements.

But Herrera said that he would vigorously contest that kind of challenge, which he considers to be without merit, telling us, “The injunction is not limited in its scope.”

UPDATE: SFPD isn’t worried

Police Chief Greg Suhr, who attended the City Hall event, said the timing on the ruling during Pride Week couldn’t be better. “It’s nice that it all lined up for us,” he told us. “This town is going to rock ‘til the wheels come off.”

Asked whether he has any heightened security concerns about the Pride Parade in the wake of a ruling that is controversial to some, Suhr said that he’s not worried. He said SFPD is now fully staffed and all available personnel working this weekend, although he will try allow many of his gay and lesbian officers to join the celebration if they want.

“We’re going to police what’s likely to be the biggest party this city has ever seen,” Suhr said, adding that his policing philosophy is, “We plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

 

SFPD responds (weirdly) to allegations of racial disparity

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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49

The San Francisco Police Department has issued a head-scratching response to charges of racial disparity in marijuana arrests, possibly in an attempt to defuse controversy over a recent incident that already has some members of the African American community up in arms.

This latest flap started Monday, when the New York Times ran a piece about an American Civil Liberties Union analysis finding that nationwide, Black Americans were four times more likely to be arrested than white people on charges of marijuana possession in 2010.

On Tuesday, the East Bay Express drew attention to that report. Then, the Chronicle ran a story suggesting that racial disparity in marijuana arrests extends to San Francisco – a city where white people have such affinity for weed that they’re known to congregate in droves not only on Hippie Hill but also Dolores Park to commemorate 4/20 with collective puffs of smoke.

The Chronicle piece seizes on 2010 data to back up its claim, noting:

“Black residents made up 6 percent of San Francisco’s population in 2010 while whites comprised 55 percent. The ACLU report said that of 298 marijuana possession arrests that year, 99 were black suspects and 195 were white suspects.” This would appear to suggest that a disproportionate number of Black suspects were arrested for marijuana possession. The Chron also pointed out, “the ACLU’s report analyzed arrest data from 2001 through 2010.”

Earlier today, the SFPD issued a response, apparently attempting to set the local press straight. It states: “This is not so. The San Francisco Police Department does not racially profile.”

To back up its claim, officers in the SFPD’s Media Relations Unit wrote: 

“In 2011, the SFPD made over 23,000 arrests, of which 14,000 were classified as misdemeanors. Today, Chief [Greg] Suhr reviewed all 11 misdemeanor marijuana arrest reports from 2011. All 11 misdemeanor marijuana charges were secondary to other charges, e.g., outstanding warrants, weapons possession, drunk in public, for which the person (four white males, three black males, two black females, one Hispanic male, and one white female) were arrested and booked. It is evident that the misdemeanor marijuana arrests cited in the article were made using sound police procedure pertaining to criminal activity and not by racial profiling.”

But this response fails to address the ACLU’s findings head on. If the New York Times and Chronicle pieces specifically hinged on 2010 figures, why did Suhr review data from 2011? The only hint comes in the SFPD statement, which notes that 2011 “was Chief Suhr’s first year as chief.”

Activists’ zine documents violent arrests at SF State

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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8

Emotions ran high at San Francisco State University on May 21, where a group of activists held a rally decrying police officers’ excessive use of force in an incident that occurred last Thursday, May 16. Five arrests were made that night outside a student dormitory. YouTube videos showing police officers tackling the arrestees to the ground, as onlookers cry out in dismay, have drawn thousands of hits.

The five young people were arraigned May 21 and face charges of misdemeanor trespassing, with some facing additional charges of resisting and obstructing an officer. Resham MacFarlane, a friend of the arrestees who accompanied them to the university, said they had all been on campus as guests of SF State students who reside in the dorm.

Officially, the arrests were made by San Francisco State University Police Department. However, individuals who were at the scene told the Bay Guardian that SFPD officers were responsible for injuring several arrestees to the point of requiring them to be transported off the scene by ambulance. According news reports, a campus police officer also sustained minor injuries. 

At the rally yesterday, supporters of the five arrestees distributed a zine they’d created to document the events, including detailed descriptions of the injuries sustained. Melissa Nahlen, 25, reportedly wound up with “cuts near her eyes, a bruised and swollen lip, a swollen left hand … and cannot bend her neck downward due to being stomped on by the police.” Since she cannot afford to hire an attorney, Nahlen is being represented by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.

Another arrestee, Carlos Cruz, was transported from the scene in an ambulance and brought to a hospital before being taken to jail at 850 Bryant. Cruz was reportedly released yesterday, May 21. During the arraignment hearing, the court appointed defense attorney Stuart Hanlon to represent him, since he was unable to afford an attorney, and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office cannot legally represent multiple co-defendants. 

“Carlos almost immediately received a blow to the head after being told he was trespassing,” according to activists’ written account. He was “Hit on head multiple times … Large bruise on shoulder, swollen wrists, loss of feeling in his thumb and forefinger in his right hand, bruises all over shins and knees, laceration on ear.” MacFarlane, a friend of Cruz’s, said that when she visited him in jail “he had a bruise on his sternum.”

Reached by phone, SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza said he could not offer detailed comment on the incident because it was under SF State’s jurisdiction. “It’s not our investigation,” Esparza said. “We made no arrests. It would be inappropriate to comment on someone else’s jurisdiction.” SFPD only responded at the behest of SF State, he said, and were called in because “it was a chaotic scene.” 

Nan Broadman, a spokesperson at SF State, said campus police initially reported to the dorm because “an unidentified caller said a drunk male was harassing passersby” outsidethe building. A friend of the arrestees noted that they had been drinking earlier on that night. Broadman said a police report for the incident was not publicly available, and did not know whether a formal investigation of officer misconduct was underway.

MacFarlane and another friend of the arrestees, who gave her name as Natasha Noel, both said the trouble started when Cruz and a friend went outside to smoke a cigarrette and encountered police, who immediately pursued them upstairs into the dormitory. The physical clash between officers and arrestees is reflected in the YouTube videos, which Natasha recorded with her cell phone. Someone pulled the fire alarm during the incident, and the building was evacuated. 

A day earlier, on May 15, SFPD’s tactical unit conducted an early morning raid at an abandoned building at 200 Broad Street, where some 30 people had been living for months. Esparza said the building’s owner initally contacted police for assistance with removing the squatters. Because the abandoned building had been occupied for so long, police sought guidance from the San Francisco City Attorney’s office as to whether they should proceed, since it was unclear whether the squatters’ presence constituted a civil, or criminal matter. The City Attorney ultimately determined that because it wasn’t a residential property, they could be removed on criminal trespassing charges rather than evicted in a civil proceeding.

A handful of those squatters, including Cruz, MacFarlane, Nahlen and some others, wound up making their way to friends’ dorm rooms at SF State. The arrests occurred just hours after their arrival on campus, according to MacFarlane.

A detailed narrative included as part of the zine notes that the squatted building was known as “the SF Commune, a community center and social space for organizers in the Ocean View district of the city.” According to this account, squatters took over the property, which had been abandoned for several years, in April of 2012. “The building was filled with needles, broken glass, and buckets of human feces. The group worked for weeks cleaning up the building, moving out all the hazardous materials and disposing of them properly, and turning the building into a livable home and organizing space.”

MacFarlane said she had been staying at the squat. “I had another place to stay, but I chose to stay at the commune,” she explained, adding that she found it to be a positive and constructive atmosphere. “There was lots of music and art every day.”

Bay to Breakers will have video surveillance, license plate scans, and secret “FBI assets”

Sasha Cuttler
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19
Bay to Breakers will have video surveillance, license plate scans, and secret “FBI assets”

Police video surveillance was in the spotlight during yesterday’s City Hall hearing on security measures at large events, as supervisors voiced a desire to strike the right balance between security and civil liberties. And while they got some reassurance and small signs of restraint from the SFPD, they also learned about secretive new security measures that go beyond what the public was aware of.

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr clarified misleading media reports (a Chronicle story then picked up by Associated Press) that he’s seeking real time video surveillance along Market Street. Right now, Suhr said he just wants an inventory of existing video cameras along Market and downtown that he can request footage from after a crime is committed and that he would make his case to the board if he ever wanted to go beyond that.

“Right now, we only look at footage in retrospect,” Suhr told the Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee hearing, adding that he has no objections to seeking a court warrant to obtain that footage because “we do want it to be admissible.”

Yet Suhr and Deputy Chief James Loftus also revealed that SFPD will be deploying an undisclosed number of temporary real-time video surveillance cameras atop long poles at the Bay to Breakers footrace on May 19, as it did last fall during the World Series and the big parade down Market Street celebrating the Giants victory.

“We always want more video,” Suhr told the Guardian, although he said that he also understands the civil liberties sensitivities of San Franciscans, which is why he isn’t now seeking a permanent increase in SFPD’s real time video surveillance capabilities. “I’m from San Francisco, I get it.”

Other security tools that the SFPD will be employing at Bay to Breakers and other large events are technology that uses video cameras on police cars to capture license plate numbers and run them through a DMV database, what Loftus vaguely described as “specialized resources from surrounding jurisdictions” (watch out for the drones, y’all), and unspecified “FBI assets [that] will be present and assisting in event security.”

When Sup. Eric Mar, who called the hearing, asked about those last two items, Loftus said he wouldn’t discuss them publicly, but “I could talk to you about it offline if you’d like.”

Sup. David Campos said that he doesn’t want San Francisco to be reactionary after incidents like the Boston Marathon bombing and that we should be a model city for balancing security with civil liberties: “I think that’s a very difficult balance to strike, but it anyone can strike that balance, I think San Francisco can.” He also expressed concerns about plans to ban backpacks at Bay to Breakers: “I don’t know if that’s going to address the problem.”

Loftus said the ban only applied to large backpacks (larger than 8.5x11x14 inches) and that runners and spectators will still be allowed to use small backpacks to hold water and changes of clothing. Yet for those concerned about the creeping police state, including several people who spoke during the public comment period, there was little consolation offered in the presentations, and the supervisors said this would be an important ongoing discussion.

“This is a discussion that goes beyond San Francisco,” Campos said. “We as a country need to have this discussion.”

Hearing on event security as SFPD pushes police state

Sasha Cuttler
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17

Just a few weeks ago, Sup. Scott Wiener, civil libertarians, and I were raising concerns here about the SFPD unilaterally expanding its video surveillance reach. Then came the bombings at the Boston Marathon, which the SFPD used to seriously up the ante in the police state pot, asking for real time video surveillance up and down Market Street and banning backpacks at Bay to Breakers.

Now, I’m not one to stand in the way of reasonable security precautions. But we shouldn’t just defer to the SFPD on whatever it says it wants because then we’ll have cameras on every corner, spy drones overhead, stop-and-frisk, and an ever-greater portion of our tax dollars going to expand the police state. Because the cops will always want more tools to police us, tools they will always say they need to protect us – it’s just in their nature. But it’s up to the rest of us to strike the right balance and not lose our heads every time some whack-job resorts to violence.

That’s why it’s good to see that Sup. Eric Mar has called a Neighborhood Service and Safety Committee hearing for this Thursday at 2pm on security measures for large events, to which he’s invited the SFPD, Planning Department, Recreation and Parks Department, and Entertainment Commission. Let’s talk about this before acting too rashly.

For example, is it really reasonable to ban backpacks at Bay to Breakers just because the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly carried their homemade bombs in backpacks? Is it possible for police to ensure that nobody in or around an event that draws more than 100,000 people has a backpack? Is it even legal to prevent me from riding my bike near a race that bisects San Francisco if I happen to be wearing a backpack?

I’m always amazed at Americans’ capacity for fear and overreaction. One nut decides to put a crude explosive in his shoe and suddenly we all have to remove our shoes every time we board an airplane (a silly measure most other countries don’t require). Even as horrible as the 9-11 attacks were, the 2,977 people they killed that day is a small fraction of the death toll that we inflicted in response (6,693 US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis killed), and I don’t think anyone can credibly claim that we’re any safer today as a result.

Fearful people will accept anything police say will make them safer, and that’s how the slide into police states throughout history always begin, pushed by tyrants of all ideological stripes. But isn’t that just giving in to terrorism? After all, we’re all far more likely to be killed by a distracted motorist than we are a terrorist, but I’m not hearing calls for big crackdowns on drivers, even in the face of good evidence this would keep us safer than banning backpacks.

Our country was founded by people who were more wary of soldiers and cops than they were random kooks, and I think we’d do well to remember what people like Benjamin Franklin had to say about irrational fears: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

ABC shows more concern about expanding police video surveillance than Mayor Lee

Sasha Cuttler
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15
ABC shows more concern about expanding police video surveillance than Mayor Lee

The SFPD has quietly expanded its reach and authority to obtain video surveillance from in and around bars, clubs, and markets through a condition it has begun recommending on new liquor licenses, as I reported in today’s issue, effectively bypassing controls on city-operated surveillance cameras established through extensive public hearings in 2005.

But the Mayor’s Office doesn’t seem concerned about the new trend, echoing SFPD’s point that it is the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control that decides whether to heed the SFPD’s request to include the video surveillance condition. “There is no new policy. SFPD makes recommendations as far as I know, not requirements,” Mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey wrote to me in an email responses to our questions.

Certainly, everyone from bar owners to the ACLU to Sups. Scott Wiener and David Campos – who have called a hearing on the policy for later this month – consider it a new policy, or at least one that the public has just learned of after it was adopted internally right after the idea was shot down in public hearings in 2011.

ABC spokesperson John Carr had told me the department “routinely denied requests for conditions by SFPD per section 23800(e) of the Californian Business and Professions Code, occasionally these denials include the surveillance condition,” but he wasn’t able to provide me any examples of that happening by press time.

But today, he was able to find one. On Oct. 3, 2012, ABC rejected the SFPD’s request for video surveillance at Bush Market at 820 Bush on a quiet residential block of Nob Hill, noting that state law requires such requests be supported by “substantial evidence” that problems exist at the site that would be mitigated by the condition.

“I regret to inform you that the Department is unable to impose conditions pursuant to your request because no evidence was provided to establish that a problem exists at the premises or in it immediate vicinity,” ABC District Administrator Justin Gebb wrote in what was essentially a form letter.

Carr shared an identical letter that the ABC sent to the SFPD denying some of its requested conditions for another liquor license transfer on Feb. 12, this one for the Space 550 event venue at 550 Barneveld Ave. But in that case, the ABC decided to support the SFPD’s request for video surveillance “that is able to view the inside and outside of the premises” and which must be given to the cops “upon demand.”

As I wrote in this week’s paper, the ACLU considers that kind of extrajudicial expansion of the SFPD’s ability to require and obtain video surveillance to be unconstitutional, and we furnished a copy of the article and the issues it raised to try to get a more substantial comment from the Mayor’s Office, which seems to be less concerned with the civil rights of San Franciscans than the bureaucrats in Sacramento are.

“Balancing public safety with vibrant cultural and nightlife activities is a concern of mayor. He expects the Police Department to work in partnership with the neighborhood and its businesses to lawfully collect evidence that can help keep the public safe and neighborhoods active,” Falvey wrote.

So I had a few follow-up questions, for which I’m still awaiting answers, and I’ll update this post if and when I get them: “The ACLU’s position is that this is not a lawful way to collect evidence, and that it violates the state constitution’s privacy protections and the rules San Francisco established in 2005 regulating when and how the SFPD may request and use video surveillance. Does the mayor reject those concerns and has he sought any legal advice to support his position? In the absence of any judicial review, shouldn’t the city have some guidelines and policies governing this expansion of SFPD’s video surveillance authority? Does the mayor believe the 2005 guidelines should no longer apply? And does the mayor agree with Sups. Wiener and Campos that it would be appropriate to have a public hearing on this issue, particularly given the strong public opposition to requiring expanded video surveillance by bars two years ago?”

Main Street’s sex club: Eros celebrates 21 years in business

Andrew Lam
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40

A few things that you may not know about Eros, the 21-year old sex club with the unassuming, rainbow-flagged façade that stands across the street from the Castro Safeway strip mall. One: it is hosting an art show on Thu/11 open to all to attend (perfect for female-identified folks interested in checking out the space, or at least the front room). Two, boundary-breaking trans-cis male porn is made there.

“Transmen were not being reached out to with the safe sex message,” says Eros’ owner Ken Rowe, a snuggly looking bear sitting on a leather couch in the club’s comfy front room. T-Wood Pictures, the club’s in-house porn company, now shoots new content once or twice a month with varying combinations of trans and cis men.

New elliptical machine!

Another point of fact: “The original founders wanted this to be a community center sex club,” he says. Co-founder Buzz Bense wanted a “Main Street sex club,” says Rowe. “Not with neon lights going ‘LIVE BOYS.’ They wanted it to look respectable, shame-free. Now we’re much more like a spa — we’re a traditional bathhouse. It’s not dark and dirty, poppers wafting through the air.”

Eros opens at noon seven days a week, and the first few hours of the day management promotes it as more of a “sex-positive day spa,” says Rowe.

>>LEARN MORE ABOUT EROS’ TRANS PROGRAMMING IN KELLY LOVEMONSTER’S SFBG INTERVIEW WITH EROS STAFF MEMBER (AND RECENTLY NAMED TRANS 100 HONOREE) NIKO KOWELL

Today, male-identified customers can take yoga and tai chi classes before hitting the club’s sauna, showers, and steam room. Elliptical machines sit nearby us, the club’s newest attractions. Community groups like Homobiles hold business meetings in the space. Potted plants sit happily on a cute little smoking deck on the other side of glass sliding doors.

A licensed massage therapist provides much-needed muscle work to customers, which was especially important back in the early days of the club, when the Police Department was in charge of licensing massage therapists in sex clubs (that duty has since been transferred to the Department of Public Health, though SFPD still must approve licenses.) Eros is the only sex club with a licensed massage therapist, to the best of Rowe’s knowledge, in Northern California.

“They wanted the club to be about more than just sex, they wanted a space where you could learn about safer sex in a non-threatening manner. You know, without being jumped on,” Rowe tells me.

 

One of Loren Bruton’s “Bathhouse Men”

Loren Bruton’s drawings line one side of the common room, aggregations of the Eros clientele that he sees every day as the club’s general manager. Eros hosts a yearly staff art show, an event that reflects the overlapping communities of artists and sex workers in the hyper-expensive Bay Area. This week, a reception will be held to celebrate Bruton’s collection that doubles as a birthday party for Eros’ decades of community involvement.

“I like that I can be myself here,” Bruton says. “It’s nice to have a sense of community someplace that is sex-positive. I wanted to represent that this is a diverse group in terms of age, race, sexual identity.” For a club that’s spent years reworking our vision of what a Main Street business can be, the renderings make for perfect poster children.

“Bathhouse Men” Eros birthday celebration

Thu/11, 7-10pm, free

Eros

2051 Market, SF

www.erossf.com

Sneaky surveillance

Andrew Lam
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19
Sneaky surveillance

steve@sfbg.com

After public outrage stopped the San Francisco Police Department from instituting controversial — and unconstitutional, say civil libertarians — new video surveillance requirements in bars and clubs more than two years ago, the department quietly began inserting that same requirement into new liquor licenses, a move met with concern at City Hall last week.

In late 2010, the SFPD proposed a draconian set of new security requirements for drinking establishments in the city, including requirements that they do video surveillance and take an image of all patrons’ identification cards and make them available to police upon request, without a warrant or any other controls (see “Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?,” 12/7/10).

That proposal ran into a wall of opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union, California Music and Culture Association, progressives on the Board of Supervisors, and others, who said such a blanket policy violates privacy protections in the California Constitution. The Entertainment Commission held a hearing on the proposal in April of 2011 and voted unanimously to reject the proposals.

At that point, they seemed to just disappear, but they didn’t. Instead, SFPD internally decided at that time to begin asking the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to insert a video surveillance requirement in most new liquor licenses in San Francisco, which escaped public notice until Sup. Scott Wiener raised the issue at the April 2 Board of Supervisors meeting.

“If you have an establishment that perhaps has a track record of bad things happening, that’s one thing. But absent that, I don’t believe that this is justified,” Wiener said as he voted against the requirement in a pair of new liquor licenses. Although Wiener was alone in opposing those applications, Sup. David Campos said he shared Wiener’s concern and the pair called an upcoming hearing on the new policy.

Two days later, at the board’s Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee meeting, Wiener again raised the issue and sought to have the new requirement removed from a pair of proposed liquor licenses: Cesar’s Ballroom on 26th and 3rd streets, the latest project of veteran local club owner Cesar Ascarrunz, and Nosa Ria, a market in Hayes Valley that will import gourmet food and wine from Spain.

“It’s the exact opposite of some kind of rowdy bar or nightclub where people are going in and getting drunk and really bad things are happening,” Wiener said of Nosa Ria, for which he persuaded fellow Sups. Eric Mar and Norman Yee to vote to remove the video surveillance condition before approving the application.

That condition stated: “The petitioner shall utilize electronic surveillance and recording equipment that is able to view the outside of the premises, including all entrances and exits, and that is actively monitored and recorded. The electronic surveillance shall be utilized during operating hours. Said electronic recording shall be kept at least 30 days and shall be made available to the Department or Police Department upon demand.”

Mar said he agreed with Wiener that “a broad discussion of electronic surveillance requirements would be important for this committee,” but Mar then voted against removing that condition from the Cesar’s Ballroom application, saying, “I think we need surveillance in certain spots on a case-by-case basis, and I think this is an area that needs surveillance.”

SFPD IS WATCHING

When SFPD first sought new video surveillance tools — back in 2005, when the department asked for 71 video cameras at high-crime intersections around the city — it was rigorously debated in public hearings for months. And when they were finally approved by the Board of Supervisors, they included an extensive set of controls on when SFPD could request footage — the department wasn’t even allowed to control the cameras directly — how it could be used and when it must be erased.

The legislation also required a follow-up study of their effectiveness in deterring and prosecuting crimes. Conducted by the University of California’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) in 2008, the report found the cameras had no impact on violent crime rates but a small deterrent impact on property crimes in the filmed areas.

As a tool for prosecuting crimes after the fact, “There has been limited success with the cameras acting as a ‘silent witness,’ with footage standing in for witness testimony; some anecdotal evidence suggests that the existence of CSC program footage can actually deter witnesses from cooperating under the assumption that the cameras have caught all necessary evidence,” the report said, also noting that twice in the 120 police requests made by 2008, footage resulted in charges being dropped or downgraded.

But today, SFPD apparently believes that times have changed, and that the rigorous oversight and evaluation of video surveillance tactics and their implications on people’s privacy rights — or even the need to notify the public that SFPD is seeking new ways to watch citizens — are no longer necessary.

“Over the last few years, we’ve increased the number of recommendations for video surveillance, for a few reasons,” SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy told the Guardian, citing how cheap and ubiquitous the technology has become and the role that video footage can play in solving crimes.

Yet attorney Michael Rischer with the ACLU of Northern California, who actively opposed the SFPD’s proposal in 2011 and was dismayed to hear the department secretly and unilaterally expanded its video surveillance reach after its proposal was rejected, said that reasoning is exactly why there are legal controls on the expanding police state.

“Both of those justifications are exceedingly troubling and they demonstrate why the San Francisco Police Department should not be doing this in some room sealed off from the public,” Rischer said. “The police have this totally backward. The ease and cost of doing this is a reason why these protections are in place.”

PRIVACY PROTECTIONS

Unlike under federal law, Californians have an explicit constitutional privacy guarantee and a body of case law defining that right in great detail. But the SFPD doesn’t seem to be aware of the nuances of that case law, such as the distinction it makes between people’s expectation of privacy on public streets versus in private businesses.

“When you enter a bar or restaurant, you don’t have an expectation of privacy,” Shyy told us.

But Rischer said that just isn’t true under the law. He noted that people do indeed have a reasonable expectation that they can enter a gay bar without being outed, for example, or that police won’t be able to demand video from a gathering in a bar where subversive political ideas are being discussed. And those concerns are exacerbated by SFPD’s policy that bar owners must simply turn over footage “upon demand.”

“The notion that the government is requiring a business to conduct surveillance of its patrons and to turn it over to the Police Department without any judicial oversight or even rules is deeply troubling and probably unconstitutional,” Rischer said.

Shyy said SFPD will “only request them when a crime has been committed,” but he also admitted that the conditions it is requesting on liquor licenses don’t set that limit and the policy hasn’t been reviewed by the Police Commission or other local oversight bodies.

ABC spokesperson John Carr told us his department doesn’t have a position on video surveillance and hasn’t tracked whether other jurisdictions are seeking the condition. As for whether it routinely includes SFPD’s recommended conditions, he said, “ABC reviews each application on a case by case basis.”

There are indications that SFPD sometimes resorts to bullying bar owners into turning over video surveillance without legal authority to do so. Jamie Zawinski with DNA Lounge last month blogged about Officer Simon Chan telling the club that it was required to keep video footage and turn it over upon request, which club operators informed the SFPD wasn’t true. “It’s just another sneaky, backdoor regulation that ABC and SFPD have been foisting on everyone without any kind of judicial oversight, in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Zawinski wrote.

Regarding that incident, Shyy would only confirm that most bars aren’t yet required to keep and turn over video footage. And he said SFPD will cooperate with the hearing Campos and Wiener have called. “At this point, we don’t believe we’re violating people’s constitutional rights, but we’re willing to have that discussion,” Shyy said.

Wiener said that on April 3, he discussed the issue with Police Chief Greg Suhr, who indicated a willingness to cooperate with public hearings on the policy. But Wiener said he’s bothered by the fact that SFPD seems to have put this new policy in place right after being unsuccessful in doing this through a public process in 2011.

“I and others expressed opposition to this and I and others thought the Police Department had backed away from it,” Wiener said at the April 4 hearing, noting that “I’m not philosophically opposed to surveillance,” only with how SFPD instituted it. “I have an issue with the Police Department deciding to insert this on its own without a broader policy discussion.”

Hunky Jesus resurrected! Contest moves inside to DNA

Andrew Lam
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1
Hunky Jesus resurrected! Contest moves inside to DNA

A cloud of gloom settled over San Francisco’s cloisters when the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s annual Hunky Jesus contest was rained out on Easter weekend. But rejoice, disciples — the deeply irreligious happenings have a new home. Gather your tithes, it’s not gonna be free this time around.

The Sisters have chosen to alight upon DNA Lounge for the resurrection, and will be charging at the door on a sliding scale — online tickets are retailing for $8 at the “apostle” level, $12 for “prophets,” and $17 for those who consider themselves worthy of paying at the “messiah” level. (We expect that the Sisters would encourage all to do so.) UPDATE: Sister Connie Pinko tells us that no one will be turned away for lack of funds, but dig deep kiddos.

What’s the cash going to pay for? Well your favorite maternal order, obviously. Briefly peruse the Sisters’ history if you need a reminder of how amazingly revolutionary and crazy these queens are. Plus, New York recording artist Love Charisse will be on hand and, DJs — the nature of whom are as yet unannounced. UPDATE: Today’s press release from the Sisters says music will be provided by the Go Bang! crew, and burlesque by Dottie Lux of Red Hots Burlesque.

Just remember to use your inside — voices. “No nudity or simulated sex acts allowed since this event is being held in a bar,” reminds the Sisters’ website. Can’t get crazy like you can at public parks, now. (Even though DNA’s doing a good job of refusing SFPD its Big Brother tendencies.)

Hunky Jesus Contest

April 19, 8pm, $8-$17 presale, $10-20 door

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

www.dnalounge.com

www.thesisters.org

Facebook event

Editor’s Notes

Andrew Lam
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5

tredmond@sfbg.com

EDITORS NOTES Ten years ago, we shut San Francisco down.

When George W. Bush gave the order to launch the invasion of Iraq, so many protesters hit the streets that it was impossible to do business. Market Street was closed. Tens of thousands of people didn’t go to work. Some 2,300 people were arrested, held in warehouses at the piers because there was no way to fit them in the county jail.

It was an exhilarating week (although I spent much of it trying to get my reporters out of the clink; the SFPD wasn’t paying much attention to press passes in the massive sweeps). It was a statement of how overwhelmingly this city was opposed to Bush’s War. It was repeated in smaller versions all over the country.

And it didn’t matter. Rep. Nancy Pelosi not only missed the antiwar rallies, she criticized us for costing the city money. A virtually unanimous Congress sides with Bush. Anyone who disputed the government line was branded as un-American.

And now we know the truth. It’s hard to find a single credible person who argues that the Iraq War was a good idea. After nearly $2 trillion dollars wasted, 4,300 US soldiers dead, and at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, nothing of value has been achieved. The new Iraq is not a reliable US ally in the Middle East. That nation is not stabilized; in fact, it’s headed for civil war. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Even if you want to be a pro-imperialist, US-interests-above-all type, you’re still going to be disappointed — American companies don’t control Iraq’s oil supply.

Ten years later, Bush is nowhere to be seen. He’s hiding out, painting pictures of himself, living comfortably. His kids didn’t die in the desert or come home with PTSD. He’s not going to be on the hook for the debt.

And none of the leaders of the pro-war march is apologizing — or even kinda, sorta admitting that they were terribly wrong. It’s hard to find any major news media accounts saying that the protesters — the ones who shut down San Francisco — were absolutely right.

Paul Krugman, one of the few mainstream news media voices who recognized the folly of the war from the start, put it this way in his March 18, 2013 column:

“What we should have learned from the Iraq debacle was that you should always be skeptical and that you should never rely on supposed authority. If you hear that ‘everyone’ supports a policy, whether it’s a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether ‘everyone’ has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion.”

So let’s just take a moment now to reflect — not only on the horrible human tragedy but the political lessons. Because we were right, and they were wrong — and I just wish that for once, they’d admit it.

Hectic days in SFPD’s officer-involved shooting unit

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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9
Hectic days in SFPD’s officer-involved shooting unit

Apparently, the one San Francisco Police Department sergeant tasked with investigating officer-involved shootings has been busy. Yesterday morning, the Guardian received an email from SFPD Media Relations officer Albie Esparza, who apologized for taking almost a month to respond to a Guardian request for information.

“It’s simply been very busy with the multiple officer involved shootings we’ve been having in SF recently,” Esparza explained. “The ONE Sergeant who works in the Internal Affairs Officer Involved Shooting unit is aware of your questions and is trying to research that, as well as investigate the three OIS incidents we’ve had recently.” 

Reached by phone, Esparza said he actually meant to say there were four officer-involved shooting investigations; one involves a Daly City officer who fired upon a person in San Francisco city limits in early March. And whoops, as of yesterday, make that five – an officer shot and killed a pit-bull yesterday in Golden Gate Park.

The three shootings Esparza initally referred to include a March 15 officer-involved shooting in the Richmond District; another one on March 5 in Bayview Hunters Point, and a third one on Feb. 15 in the Tenderloin. Only the March 5 shooting resulted in an individual being struck; he wasn’t killed. Police later held a town hall meeting about that incident, which transpired after a high-speed chase that ended in a cul-de-sac. The suspect drove into two police cars and hit an officer, according to the police department’s account, before officers shot at him. Esparza said he did not have information about whether the incident involving the Daly City officer resulted in a fatal gunshot wound.

The Guardian’s original questions, meanwhile, remain unanswered. We submitted a query regarding a fatal officer-involved shooting that killed Pralith Pralourng last July. The 32-year-old Oakland resident had a history of mental illness, and was killed outside a chocolate factory in San Francisco after brandishing a box cutter. Police Chief Greg Suhr has pointed to this case as a prime example for why police ought to be equipped with Tasers. But the SFPD launched a specialized crisis intervention training (CIT) program over the last several years specifically to help officers better respond to calls involving mentally ill individuals. Local advocates weighing in at recent public hearings convened by SFPD said they feared the department could lose sight of CIT de-escalation tactics if the Tasers plan moves forward. 

The Guardian submitted questions to SFPD in late February asking whether the officer who shot and killed Pralourng had been trained under CIT; if any CIT officers were dispatched to the scene, since the call involved a mentally ill individual; and whether CIT de-escalation techniques were attempted prior to the shooting.

After nearly a month, Esparza finally sent a response from SFPD internal affairs. “We were told that because it’s open and active, the file is exempt from disclosure,” he said. Basically, we hit a dead end and were told to try again later. When things aren’t so busy.

Family of teen shot in Alice Griffith still waiting for Housing Authority help

Sasha Cuttler
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14

Aireez Taylor, a 15-year-old Mission High School student and a resident of the Alice Griffith public housing project in Bayview, was shot seven times on Dec. 29.

It happened around 6:30 p.m. She was with several friends at a house just a few blocks from her home in Alice Griffith, also known as Double Rock. They were standing on the porch talking, her mother, Marissa, told the Guardian. Then two men armed with guns hopped out of a parked car. One of Aireez’s friends, a 17-year-old boy who lived at the house with his family, saw them coming. He ran for the door and was shot once in the foot. Aireez, fleeing after him, was shot seven times.


Residents of Alice Griffith interviewed by the Guardian described an intensification in the violent crime at and around their community in recent months. Several attributed the violence to a conflict between African American and Samoan gang members. Whatever the cause, the shooting of a 15-year-old girl stands as evidence of the ongoing danger in San Francisco’s public housing developments. Aireez’s father, Roger Blalark, said that his daughter wasn’t the intended target of the shooting. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he said.

But for Aireez, who survived the attack, the wrong place at the wrong time is her home in Alice Griffith. Her parents have applied for emergency relocation with the San Francisco Housing Authority, but after two months—and amid the recent scandal surrounding Director Henry Alvarez and federal reports that have rated the agency as one of the worst in California—they are still waiting for the agency to locate and repair a unit in a new housing development. In the meantime, Roger and Marissa continue to fear for their daughter’s life. “What if they find the guy and ask her to testify?” asked Roger.

Aireez made a steady recovery from the gunshot wounds inflicted upon her in the December attack. But the trauma of the event has not been as easily healed. She spent three weeks at San Francisco General Hospital. During that time, an unknown intruder tried to snap a photo of her as she lay in her hospital bed, Roger said. Later, a man claiming to be her father came to inquire about her, while Roger himself was at her bedside.

A police officer met with Roger and Marissa on the Monday following the attack. Aireez reportedly had not seen the shooters. An investigation is underway, though no arrests have been made and the police have no suspects, according to SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy.

The journey home from the hospital was a return to the place where she had nearly been killed, a community where the shooters presumably were still at large. “She gets shakes, every time she comes home,” said Roger. “She has to come by the corner where she got shot.”

SFPD Bayview District Captain Robert O’Sullivan said that relocation is an important part of protecting the victims of violent crimes. Ultimately, the choice to relocate a tenant rests with the Housing Authority. “There needs to be an assessment done when something like a shooting occurs in public housing,” said O’Sullivan. Alice Griffith, he pointed out, has a significant number of people in a relatively small space.

“It’s always something that is in the front of people’s mind, anyone that has a stake in this, in investigating or assisting—is this going to be a risk for this person or their family in continuing to stay here?” O’Sullivan said.

Marissa and Roger applied for an emergency transfer on Jan. 2. There was paperwork to fill out, then the Housing Authority had to search for a vacant unit that could accommodate a family of their size. Housing Authority spokesperson Rose Marie Dennis said that she could not give out confidential information regarding specific tenants, but confirmed that the majority of the Housing Authority’s holdings are studios, one-, or two-bedroom apartments.

Roger and Marissa needed something bigger. A unit that could accommodate their family was finally located in another housing development by the third week of January. Marissa was initially told that the unit would be ready in two weeks. But two weeks turned into five, and now six, and Marissa still doesn’t know the status of the unit or when it will be ready for move in.

Dennis told us the Housing Authority tries to accommodate all requests for relocation, and prioritizes tenants with emergencies. Victims of a violent crime that request a transfer are moved as soon as possible, she said. But the process of relocating a victim is often hindered by a variety of factors, including Housing Authority’s ability to allocate resources toward fixing up vacant units. The length of the wait is a matter of resources and cooperation between all the parties involved in preparing the new unit. Once a suitable place has been found, teams of custodians and craftsmen and women must work to clear, clean, and repair the unit. Preparing a unit for move in costs on average $12,000, she said.

The problem is not that there aren’t empty units. According to Dennis, vacant housing stock is in a constant state of flux, with the current occupancy rate estimated to be 96.3 percent. Since the Housing Authority manages a total of 6,476 units over 45 development projects, that would indicate that as many as 240 units now lie empty. Dennis said that some units are kept vacant by the Housing Authority for a variety of reasons, while many others are only made available as the agency finishes the repairs and renovations necessary to make the units livable by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) strict standards.

Roger and Marissa’s experiences would appear to dovetail with recent media scrutiny that suggests the Housing Authority has reached a critical state of dysfunction. The agency made the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s list of troubled agencies after it received a 54 out of 100 on their latest evaluation. Scandal has dogged the agency’s leadership—three lawsuits alleging discrimination and retaliation were recently filed against Alvarez, who was also accused in a lawsuit of steering contracts to political allies. And it’s long-term capital outlook is looking increasingly bleak, as buildings accumulate decades of wear and tear and infrastructure becomes obsolescent. Stuck with a federal budget that remains constant, the Housing Authority is put in the position of maintaining outdated infrastructure that would, in the long run, be more cost effective to replace, said Dennis.

But Dennis nevertheless assured the Guardian that the agency addresses emergencies as quickly as possible—irrespective of larger, structural financial deficits. “We get bogged down in anecdotes that aren’t reflective of what’s ahead of us,” said Dennis. “We don’t have time for politics, that really doesn’t add up to positive change.”

So what is positive change for the residents of San Francisco’s public housing? With Alvarez on leave, Mayor Ed Lee has stated his intention to revamp the agency’s leadership and has appointed five new commissioners to oversee the city’s public housing.  “Being on a constant treadmill of troubled lists and repair backlogs that are structurally underfunded is not working for our residents or our City,” Lee said in a press release.

Lee spoke of a “better model” through HOPE SF, a massive redevelopment plan that began under former Mayor Gavin Newsom and which hinges on public-private partnerships. Alice Griffith is one among several sites that is being rebuilt as part of HOPE SF, with construction scheduled to begin in 2014. The plan is to create mixed-income neighborhoods where 256 new affordable rental units are interspersed in a larger community of market-rate homes.

But in the meantime, the day-to-day reality of the violence and dysfunction faced by tenants continues. “It’s not about tearing down the projects, you got to revitalize what’s already here,” said Roger.  

Roger knows that a relocation won’t necessarily solve their problems. He worries about the persisting presence of gang members at the new housing development, about the fact that he will be trying to protect his family in a community that he is much less familiar with. At Alice Griffith, Roger has connections within the community. He helps direct the Run, Ball & Learn Program, which provides basketball and tutoring programs for community youth. So they wait.

“They’re gonna have their own process,” says Marissa. “In the meantime we’re still sitting here.”

Wiener’s dance mix: more DJs mixed with fines for “bad actors”

Sasha Cuttler
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7

DJs could proliferate in San Francisco’s bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and plazas under legislation that Sup. Scott Wiener introduced today to include DJs under the city’s limited live music permits, but the legislation also includes new enforcement powers to crackdown on underground parties and other unpermitted events.

Limited live music permits – which are far cheaper and easier to obtain than the city’s full-blown Place of Entertainment permits ($385 compared to around $2,000 for the POE permits) – were created in 2011 by legislation sponsored by then-Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, allowing amplified performances until a 10pm curfew. But DJs were left out, despite their prevalence in San Francisco, something Wiener is now trying to correct.

“Entertainment and nightlife are an essential part of San Francisco’s cultural and economic vibrancy,” Wiener said today in a press release announcing the proposal. “This legislation fosters live entertainment while also heightening our ability to monitor and regulate bad actors.”

It’s that last part that doesn’t sit well with everyone, particularly given San Francisco’s pervasive culture of throwing underground parties, which are key fundraising tools for grassroots efforts such as Burning Man camps but which are the targets of periodic crackdowns by the SFPD and other agencies. It seems that when it comes to nightlife, we always have to take some medicine whenever City Hall offers a spoonful of sugar.

The legislation would give the Entertainment Commission the authority to levy $100 fines to those involved with unpermitted parties, either in established clubs or underground warehouses, whereas now the commission only has the authority to punish those who have permits for violating them.

“Punishing a DJ playing at a party in which the promoter didn’t get the proper permits (perhaps unbeknownst to the DJ), would be unfair and inappropriate, in my opinion,” was how DJ/Promoter Syd Gris from Opel Productions and Opulent Temple reacted to the legislation.

But Entertainment Commission Executive Director Jocelyn Kane told us she doesn’t expect to fine an DJs. While she asked Wiener for those enforcement powers, they are simply a way of encouraging promoters and business owners to get permits. “We’re not into punishment, we’re into compliance,” she said, adding that this is simply seeking authority to do administratively what the SFPD and California Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration can now to criminally and civilly.

Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and a DJ/promoter at the popular Hard French parties, told us “where I really want clarification is on the new enforcement powers for the commission,” although he agreed with Kane that the commission generally works cooperatively with the nightlife community, far more than either the SFPD or ABC.

“All in all, it’s a really good step in the right direction,” Temprano said of the Wiener legislation. “It seems really positive. As a DJ, allowing DJs to be used for limited live performances is just common sense.”

Kane said the legislation will allow music to flourish in the city, from outdoor plazas to small venues, many of which have used DJs illegally. “We’ll be able to legalize that and bring them into the fold,” she said. “There always have been places that use a DJ like a jukebox.”

In addition to the relatively cheap application cost compared to POE permits, limited live music perhaps are quick and easy to obtain and don’t necessarily require city inspections paid for by the applicant.

In his press release, Wiener praised the importance of nightlife to the city economy and cited a city study he commissioned last year which found that nightlife has a $4.2 billion impact on San Francisco, employing 48,000 people and furnishing the City with $55 million in tax revenue annually.

“We need to encourage a flourishing nightlife that not only marks San Francisco as a cultural capital, but also creates jobs and brings in revenue for essential City services,” Wiener said. “These amendments are part of that broader strategy.”

Girl Scouts versus Scott Weiner versus Naked Sword: Here’s your week in sexy events

Andrew Lam
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2
Girl Scouts versus Scott Weiner versus Naked Sword: Here’s your week in sexy events

There are few things that San Franciscans love more than Thin Mints, and local Girl Scouts found out what those were on Sunday when a troop conviniently posted up in front of the deceased Diesel store at Castro and Market. The whippersnappers paid witness not only to another nude-y demonstration against the city’s new ban on public nudity, but also to said demonstration’s infiltration by dapper members (ahem) of local porn outfit Naked Sword [as Castro Biscuit reported.] They’re making a send-up of the nudity ban starring an ambitious politician, surname: Cox. Wink.

The flick will star Guardian cover boy Leo Forte, Dale Cooper as Cox, Christian Wilde as Officer Dick — who, we will note, was the only “cop” making arrests at the porn shoot-protest. Though there were six members of SFPD there by Castro Biscuit’s count and many exposed sets of genitalia, not a single arrest was made. If you’re going to have a nudity ban, might as well be a selectively-enforced one — all the better for climate-of-fear creating, amiright?

Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention 

Perhaps you were unable to attend the AVN porn awards in Vegas this year, or last weekend’s transgender version, the Tranny Awards in Los Angeles. How will you supplant the opportunities you forewent to rub elbows with your favorite adult stars in a vast, drafty hotel conference room? Might we recommend this peculiar, multi-day event hosted by porn critics Xbiz and sex-only Second Life-esque world Red Light Social Center. Now in its second year, you can prowl the halls of the convention avatar-like, taking in a Q&A with James Deen (Sat/23, 10am), daily industry networking hours, and expert panels on social media and branding for adult brands (Wed/27, 2pm) and online possibilities for sex work (Fri/22, 2pm).

Wed/20-Sat/23, free with online registration. www.adultvirtualconvention.com

Bawdy Storytelling: “One Night Stand” slam

It’s another edition of this XXX storytelling series’ amateur hour — not in a bad way! We’re just trying to say the field is open to all comers. Come at 7:30pm to sign up for a five-minute slot, all for you to lay bare your tale of one-off sexual shenanigans. The winner gets to compete in an upcoming championship round of some sort. Good luck, truth teller. 

Thu/21, 8pm, $10. Cafe Royale, 800 Post, SF. www.bawdystorytelling.com

Antique vibrator talk with Rachel Maines

Rachel Maines was actually researching a different kind of poke entirely when she came across the world of vibrator history — the scholar, who is currently a visiting scientist at Cornell University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, first saw mention of old school vibes in antique needlepoint magazines. Her interest piqued, Maines embarked on a study of the vibrator’s origins in private homes and as a tool used by doctors to treat “hysteria” among the female population. Today, she gives a talk surrounded by Good Vibrations founder Jodi Blanks’ formidable collection of vibrators throughout history — and of course, alongside some modern-day versions you can buy for your newly-educated self. 

Fri/22, 6:30pm, free. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com

Sex Worker Outreach Project meeting

Current and former sex workers are invited over to talk justice at SWOP’s regular meeting of the minds. The national organization fights for social justice for sex workers, working particularly on anti-violence issues. SWOP was behind a failed bid to decriminalize prostitution in 2004, and every year leads the way with the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers — check it out. 

Feb. 28, 6pm, free. Harm Reduction Coalition, 1440 Broadway, Suite 510, Oakl. www.swopbay.org

“Hard Day at the Office: Sex Workers on the Job”

… Speaking of SWOP, if you didn’t make it to that meeting — or aren’t a current or former sex worker, but still want to support the group’s work — or just like lit, get over to this evening of spoken word performances about the world’s oldest profession. Contributing to the program: Apaulo Hart, Carol Queen, Chad Litz, Cho Whoreingsly Prancypants, Daphne Gottlieb, Jacques LeFemme, Janetta Johnson, Miss Lola Sunshine, and Shelley “Muffie” Mays. 

Sat/23, 8pm, $10-20 sliding scale. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

Will it fly? Drones in Alameda County and (almost) San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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15
Will it fly? Drones in Alameda County and (almost) San Francisco

During what one official called the “show-and-tell” portion of a public hearing held yesterday by a committee of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, a representative from the Sheriff’s Office held up a drone so the crowd of 100 or so attendees could have a look. The small, lightweight device consisted of a plastic box to house technical equipment, a camera, and four spidery legs affixed with tiny black propellers.

“It’s cuute!” someone exclaimed. But that was likely a sarcastic wisecrack – concerned citizens had packed the board chambers in hopes of convincing the two-person Public Protection Committee that the civil liberties implications of surveillance drones were too great to justify flying them over Oakland and other cities. 

Last summer, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern submitted a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant request for an “unmanned aircraft system” (UAS), police-speak for drone. The agency intends to purchase one or two, depending on the manufacturer, for uses ranging from thermal imagery to crime detection.

The Sheriff now seeks supervisors’ approval, and is working to secure a Certificate of Authorization (COA) from the Federal Aviation Administration, required for aircraft flown at 400 feet. But the Sheriff’s plan has been met with strong resistance from civil liberties advocates worried that drones would open the gates to aerial surveillance and runaway data collection.

Concerns revolve around surveillance

Representatives from the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the grassroots Alameda County Against Drones voiced myriad concerns about what they viewed as flimsy privacy protections put forward by the department. “The potential concerns with drones are too great to justify any use of drones at all in Alameda County,” said Nadia Kayyali of Alameda County Against Drones.

In turn, Sheriff representatives sought to defend its plan to use the devices, at one point practically asking critics to think of the children.

“We get several hundred calls a year for search and rescue, and deployment of our teams, to find lost children, lost hikers, or elderly persons,” Capt. Tom Madigan explained, and his co-presenter even referenced the case of famed kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard as a possible scenario where a drone could have been deployed. Commander Tom Wright assured supervisors that the drones would not be equipped with weapons, and stated that UAS devices would “not be used for indiscriminate mass surveillance.”

Yet the use of drones for surveillance and intelligence gathering lies at the heart of the controversy. “Data collected in the name of search and rescue could be retained for intelligence gathering and analysis,” ACLU staff attorney Linda Lye warned in comments delivered to the Public Protection Committee. “In conjunction with other existing policies, this would lead to the submission of UAS-collected data to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, also known as a ‘fusion center,’ where data – in some instances, about constitutionally protected activity –are stockpiled and analyzed in the name of so-called terrorism prevention.”

According to documents obtained by EFF and MuckRock News, the Sheriff’s Office indicated in its grant request that the unmanned aircraft could be used for “surveillance (investigative and tactical),” “intelligence gathering,” “suspicious persons” or “large crowd control disturbances,” the latter bringing to mind street clashes that flared up in downtown Oakland in 2011 when riot police sought to crush protests organized under the banner of Occupy Oakland. 

If the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department obtains drones, the unmanned aircraft could be deployed anywhere from Monterey to the Oregon border, Madigan noted, if regional law enforcement agencies determined that emergency circumstances warranted jurisdictional waivers.

Technology advancing

Unlike helicopters, drones can gather high-resolution footage and other kinds of data without detection, transmitting live video feed to a command post for real-time viewing. While the Sheriff’s Department is eyeing drones that travel a quarter of a mile from base with a 25-minute flight time capacity, the technology is advancing quickly. It’s technically possible for drones to be equipped with facial recognition technology, radar, or license-plate readers.

Those growing capabilities are part of the reason civil liberties advocates are so focused on hammering out strong privacy safeguards. “We’re wading into uncharted waters here,” Lye cautioned, noting that any privacy safeguards established for these drones would apply to more advanced models down the line. “We have to bake in the privacy safeguards into this template.”

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors held off on approving a drone purchase by the Sheriff Department late last year when faced with controversy. It was originally included as an agenda item before any public meeting had been scheduled, but was later removed after civil liberties advocates intervened. At a December meeting, Undersheriff Richard Lucia told supervisors that including drone approval on the agenda had been “an oversight.”

If Alameda County obtains a drone, it will be the first California law enforcement agency to do so. Several other cities are proceeding cautiously: Last week, for example, Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle canceled a drone program amid heated controversy.

San Francisco also sought a drone 

Meanwhile, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is not the only Bay Area law enforcement agency eyeing unmanned aircraft devices. According to a document unearthed by an EFF and MuckRock News, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) submitted a $100,000 funding request to the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative for a “remote pilot video camera,” basically a drone, that could be outfitted to “transmit real-time, geo-coded data to command centers.” The SFPD initially hoped to clear the FAA approval process by June of 2013, according to the document. However, its funding request was rejected. (It is unclear why San Francisco’s funding request for a drone was more than three times the funding request submitted by Alameda County.)

The grant request form notes that Lieutenant Thomas Feledy of the SFPD’s Homeland Security Unit sought funding for “the deployment of mobile compact video cameras in the visual and infrared spectrum … to provide live overhead views of critical infrastructure” in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

“It was rejected,” Officer Albie Esparza told the Guardian when we called SFPD media relations to ask about it. “And we have no plans of getting a drone.”

When Christeene Vale plays you in the film version: ‘Fourplay’ screens this weekend at ATA

Andrew Lam
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0
When Christeene Vale plays you in the film version: ‘Fourplay’ screens this weekend at ATA

She wears a Guess Collection spotted lynx coat, Manolo Blahnik boots, Isabel Marant dress, La Perla lingerie. She has to figure out how to have sex with a quadriplegic. She is gentle, the most sweet. The Christeene Vale that stars in the “San Francisco” segment of Fourplay, a collection of sex-themed shorts that will screen in part at Other Cinema’s “Eros” lineup at Artist’s Television Access on Sat/16 is not the same filthy drag-terror I remember slapping and dredging her sweaty stomach over the faces of other front row admirers at her Public Works appearance last year. 

In part, this is due to the fact that in Fourplay Vale (or rather, Paul Soileau, her real world alter ego) is interpreting the cross-dressing SF sex worker who is sitting across the table from me in a SoMa cafe. Her name is Chloe, and she is explaining to me why her job is a lot like being a therapist.

Here is the plot of Fourplay‘s “San Francisco”: Soileau’s Chloe is called out to North Bay house with an unusual challenge. The wife of a quadriplegic man wants a professional to give him his first experience with a biological man. He’s not gay, the wife explains upon Chloe’s arrival. It’s just something he wants to do. 

The ensuing scene between Soileau and the prone man will convince anyone of the need for experienced, compassionate sex workers. It will also introduce you to ways of sexual pleasure you perhaps had not previously considered (spoiler alert, but: toe.) 

The story is loosely based on an experience that real-life Chloe recounted to director Kyle Henry when they were introduced by a mutual friend in San Francisco. They changed a things about the plot to make it simpler for audiences to digest. It was actually the quadriplegic’s mother who called Chloe. In the film version of Fourplay the disabled man is older — in real life he was 23 years old, having had an awful motorcycle accident at 18. The real-deal sex took place in Post Street hotel, one with adequate handicapped access so that the mother could position the man in the room, leave the money in an envelope on the desk. The next time real-life Chloe heard from mom, it was three years later. She had called to let him know her son had passed away in his sleep.

“All I could think was ‘god, this woman loves her son so much,’” Chloe tells me over tea at the new 111 Minna cafe. In person, it is easy to see similarities between the queen in front of me and Soileau that may have lead to the casting of the Fourplay short. Both of them have big eyes that look at you — Vale’s through freaky contact lenses, but you imagine the spirit is the same behind the plastic. In person, Chloe affirms, Soileau is actually quite gentle and Southern. Christeene hadn’t yet been born when the short was filmed almost three years ago, or when the two drag queens spent time studying each other before the short was shot. 

Chloe remembers that she was insistent that the tenderness she felt for the disabled man be apparent on screen, that Soileau bring back to life the humility she felt in that moment. 

“It wasn’t about getting pleasure,” she says of the quadripligic man. “It was more about him giving pleasure.” Which makes sense – a man who has to be waited on 24/7 for his own survival would fantasize, one supposes, about the moment when he could give happiness to another. “It changed my definition of what sex could be.” 

Chloe’s career began when a drag queen named Chocolate who worked the door at Trannyshack Tuesdays at the Stud asked baby-drag Chloe what her “price” was. Chocolate became her teacher, learning her the best way to work with clients. Judging from the way Chloe divined, diagnosed, and prescribed a cure for my Valentine’s Day anxiety, she’s definitely attuned to the needs of others — one of those “givers.”

“Very quickly,” Chloe remembers “the fear subsided when I saw how powerful touching the skin of another person, having them touch yours – how remarkable and transformative that can be.” Through the power of drag, she was able to take charge of each rendezvous and, she feels, really help people. “We’re not criminals. We’re artists, we’re shamans,” she tells me. Chloe was active in 2008’s defeated Proposition K, which would have prohibited the SFPD from using resources to instigate and prosecute sex work. 

“We live in a lonely world. People can go for days without speaking [in real life] to anyone.” She saw lots of self-identified straight men during those days of the first dom com boom in San Francisco, the kind of guys desired by the same burly gay men who the slight, nerdy Chloe felt rejected by in bars before she started sex work (“tranny’s revenge,” she laughs.) But when I ask how it felt to be so intimate with people who were in the closet, Chloe bridles. 

“As I understand, there’s a big difference between sexual identity and sexual practice.” Let them be straight if they say they’re straight, she avers. “I believe everyone should have the power of self definition.” 

Her caretaking spirit is evident in the short that Henry and the rest of his Austin-based collective created (Henry’s partner is one of Vale’s back-up dancers — the making of the “San Francisco” segment was somewhat of a family affair.) The partial screening on Saturday will be the second for Fourplay in San Francisco after last year’s Frameline debut. Who know, maybe Christeene will make an appearance — she was just announced as a guest judge for Fri/15’s Trannyshack Star Search pageant. 

Chloe’s excited that more of her SF friends get a chance to see the piece that they put together so many years ago. “It was so easy because Paul is so sweet, so fearless, he understood the complexity of the piece. And he fit perfectly in my clothes.” 

Yep, that fuzzy feeling wasn’t the only thing Chloe contributed to Fourplay – lady offered up the clothes off her back. 

Fourplay shorts at Other Cinema’s Eros Show

Sat/16, 8:30pm, $7

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.othercinema.com

www.frameline.org

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