Maher, Brooke Jenkins: San Francisco’s Lax Prosecution Is a White Guy ‘Throwing an Anchor’ to Black, Latino People

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher and former San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brooke Jenkins argued that San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s lax prosecution policies are an example of how people “wind up actually throwing an anchor to the people they think they’re helping.” Because Black and Latino people suffer the most from gang violence on the streets.

Jenkins said Boudin “simply wants to find ways not to prosecute and he touts it as being something that helps Black and Latino communities while ignoring that Black and Latino people suffer the most, oftentimes, from street violence.”

Maher then asked, “Is this guy white?”

Jenkins responded, “Of course, yes.”

Maher then said, “Tell me why you say, ‘Of course,’ because it sounds like we probably agree on this, which is these white people think — they’re, I always say, more offended than the victim. I think their heart is in the right place and they wind up actually throwing an anchor to the people they think they’re helping. Because as you say, who’s hurt by gang violence?”

Jenkins responded, “Right. It’s Black and Latino people. My husband’s 18-year-old cousin, a young Black man, was gunned down in San Francisco in 2020. He was walking down the street, innocent young guy, killed in the midst of a gang feud going on in San Francisco. And…it’s his family that has to suffer and watch the D.A. there refuse to prosecute his murderers to the fullest extent.”

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