The owner of a San Francisco art gallery who was caught on video spraying a homeless woman on the sidewalk with water from a garden hose has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery in the incident.
Video of the encounter was posted to the Internet and went viral. As Breitbart News reported last week:
A San Francisco art gallery owner was caught on video spraying a homeless woman with a garden hose on the street in front of his storefront because she would not move down the street — and she was later hospitalized.
Debate raged online about whether the man was justified …
San Francisco has suffered an exodus of businesses due to crime, open-air drug use, the growth of a large homeless population, and the availability of work-from-home options for many workers in the tech industry.
Police have now acted, the Los Angeles Times reported, after the man publicly admitted his actions:
Collier Gwin, 71, faces a charge of misdemeanor battery after being accused of intentionally and unlawfully spraying water on a woman who was sitting on a sidewalk outside his gallery, according to the San Francisco district attorney’s office, which said it issued an arrest warrant for Gwin after reviewing the evidence from a police investigation.
Gwin was arrested at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and was booked at a county jail on the arrest warrant. The case remains an open investigation, police said in a statement.
…
If convicted, Gwin could face up to six months in county jail and a $2,000 fine, prosecutors said.
The art gallery had publicly apologized for the incident earlier this week, the San Francisco Chronicle noted.
San Francisco has suffered the slowest recovery from the pandemic of any city in the U.S., according to new data.
Office workers have continued to work from home, and the city’s homelessness, crime, and open-air drug use, combined with a high cost of living, have deterred people from returning to living and working in the city.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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