Gallery owner Collier Gwin in San Francisco police custody for spraying homeless woman with hose
Gallery owner Collier Gwin was taken into police custody Wednesday after the San Francisco DA’s Office issued an arrest warrant for misdemeanor battery in connection with him spraying an unhoused woman with a hose last week.
The San Francisco District Attorney Office sent out a press release and DA Brooke Jenkins tweeted about the warrant Wednesday afternoon. According to authorities, Gwin will be “charged with misdemeanor battery for the alleged intentional and unlawful spraying of water on and around a woman experiencing homelessness on January 9, 2022.”
The DA’s office said if convicted, Gwin faces up to six months in county jail and a $2,000 fine.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Friday said the incident reminded her of how police treated civil rights protesters during the 1960s.
“The alleged battery of an unhoused member of our community is completely unacceptable. Mr. Gwin will face appropriate consequences for his actions,” the SF District Attorney’s Office release read.
The release also noted that “the vandalism at Foster Gwin gallery is also completely unacceptable and must stop – two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Gwin has lived in San Francisco for 45 years. He said this confrontation was the result of multiple attempts to get the woman help, after he spent days cleaning up her mess and letting her sleep in his doorway. He added that she often knocks over trash cans, and her behavior has scared off his clients.
“I’m very, very sorry, I’m not going to defend myself, I’m not going to, because I can’t defend that,” he said.
Gwin said he and other business owners in the area have called SFPD and social services more than two dozen times in the last two weeks.
“I said she needs psychiatric help,” Gwin said. “You can tell, she’s pulling her hair, she’s screaming, she’s talking in tongues, you can’t understand anything she says, she’s throwing food everywhere.”
Gwin said on Monday, he’d had enough.
“I’ve been down here 40 years. I’ve seen tons of homeless people, we’ve helped the ones that we could, and I have not had any issues with people,” he said. “But in this case, I was very upset, that the city could not help, and their hands are tied too.”
This is the video that went viral:
Other news stories gave more details:
Gwin told the Chronicle that he had been letting the woman sleep in his doorway for days and was speaking with the city about getting her assistance. He claimed that he started spraying her with the hose after she refused to leave and became belligerent.
Barbarossa Lounge owner Arash Ghanadan confirmed details from Gwin’s statement – that the woman had been posted there for days and local business owners had been trying to get her assistance from the city – but he disagreed on how to treat her.
San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin posted about the incident on Twitter, calling it an “unconscionable assault” and saying police were “soliciting witness statements to ensure this man is charged.”
He also said that his office was “well acquainted with the victim” and had by trying to get support for her from the San Francisco Department of Public Health “for months.”
Gwin’s interview explains his perspective:
“I said you have to move; I cannot clean the street; move down,” said Gwin, describing the confrontation late Monday morning with a woman he later identified as “Cora.” “She starts screaming belligerent things, spitting, yelling at me…. At that point she was so out of control…. I spray her with the hose and say move, move. I will help you.”
In the Chronicle interview, Gwin complained that the woman behaved erratically and had a tendency to leave possessions on the sidewalk. He referred to himself as “a champion” who tried to help her by letting her sleep in his entryway for multiple days, calling social services and communicating with police officials in a bid to get assistance for her. But the situation only worsened, he said.
He said the woman has refused to leave the area, is often belligerent and often turns over garbage cans that he then has to clean up.
So let’s review the situation.
A crazy homeless woman is camping out in a business’s doorway for days.
She vandalized his property, damaged it, caused a mess, and drove away his customers.
The business owner calls the city and tries to get her help.
The city fails to do it’s job.
In a moment of frustration, the business owner, who had ben tolerant of this damage to his business, squirts the woman with a garden hose.
The city immediately rushes into action to arrest him and turn him into a criminal.
All of the damage the woman did to his property goes unpunished.
This is everything wrong with society.
The city, and the virtue signaling assholes who made the video go viral, prioritizes a homeless woman’s destruction of a business over the businessman’s ability to provide a clean and safe environment for his customers or to make a living.
I am suddenly reminded of this quote:
“I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone decided to clear a homeless encampment from their property with an armored bulldozer.
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