San Francisco Police Chief Cancels Public Appearance After Day Of Protests Against Him
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr cancelled a planned public appearance with Public Defender Jeff Adachi Tuesday evening after a day of protests calling for him to leave his job.
Protesters were headed in the direction of the planned police accountability forum, at Congregation Sherith Israel at 2266 California St.,
after disrupting the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday afternoon and gathering outside Mayor Ed Lee's door demanding Suhr be fired.
Shortly before the scheduled 7 p.m. public forum, Suhr canceled his involvement. In an email, police officials said, "Security concerns were
expressed to the organizers and they made the decision to cancel."
However the public defender's office said Adachi would hold a meeting there with or without Suhr. Adachi "will go forward with tonight's
event at Sherith Israel, as a community conversation," officials in his office wrote on Twitter.
The hundreds of protesters who gathered Tuesday afternoon were in support of hunger strikers calling for Suhr's ouster.
Five people dubbed the Frisco5 have refrained from eating for 13 days in protest of recent police killings in San Francisco and are calling
for Lee to fire police Suhr.
The supporters marched from the Mission Police Station to City Hall Tuesday afternoon, pushing the five hunger strikers in wheelchairs, and then gathered in Civic Center Plaza at about 2:30 p.m. while chanting "Fire Chief Suhr!"
The protesters then entered City Hall and stood outside the door to the mayor's office, where they were told by the mayor's Director of
Violence Prevention Services Diana Oliva-Aroche that Lee was not inside.
Around the same time, Lee posted a photo on Twitter from a meeting with merchants in the city's Bayview District in support of small businesses.
An hour later, Lee posted a photo of himself touring a homeless shelter on Pier 80.
Some of the protesters then went into the Board of Supervisors chambers and called for the supervisors to make the mayor fire Suhr.
"Now is the time to take action," one protester said at the meeting. "People are dying literally across the hall, they're withering away.
Are you ready to do something?"
Board president London Breed then called for a recess of the meeting while chanting continued.
During the recess, the supervisors held an impromptu conversation with the demonstrators, and at one point two of the hunger strikers were wheeled to the front of the room, right in front of board President London Breed. Deputies quickly removed them.
Breed assured the crowd that reforms were in the works. "No it's not enough, and no it's not perfect," she said of the progress thus far.
"This is not going to happen overnight."
The protesters had hoped to meet with the mayor and after being unable to find him, headed for the scheduled forum with Suhr.
The demonstrations were spurred by the recent fatal shootings by police officers in San Francisco, including of Mario Woods by several
officers in the Bayview District in December. Bystanders captured that shooting on video and it circulated widely on social media.
"Technology is taking over and we're tired of seeing it on video," said Felia Sala, a Vallejo resident attending Tuesday's protest.
Jose Hernandez, a Daly City resident also at the protest, questioned why police didn't use crisis negotiators in cases like Woods' before opening fire and said the shootings are an example of injustice in the city.
"San Francisco is the most beautiful city aesthetically, but not in a social or economic way," Hernandez said.
The march from the Mission District to City Hall blocked traffic on many major thoroughfares in the city Tuesday afternoon, including Mission Street, Market Street and Van Ness Avenue.
