Law&Crime Sidebar - Art Gallery Owner Caught Spraying Homeless Woman with Hose Charged with Battery

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

A San Francisco art gallery owner was arrested and charged with battery after a video surfaced showing him spraying a homeless California woman with a hose. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks it down with Reverend Amos Brown, president of the local chapter of the NAACP.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. The man seen hosing down a homeless person in a viral video is arrested. We sit down with the president of the local chapter of the NACP who spoke with the defendant and his response, It may not be what you think. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Now, you might have seen this story out of San Francisco.

I say, might, you probably have, because there's this video that went absolutely viral. People have a lot of opinions about it. A lot of arguments on both sides, quite controversial. There is a video of an art gallery owner named Collier Gwyn, and in the video, he's spraying down a homeless person with a hose. This happened earlier this month, but he was officially arrested in charge with misdemeanor battery, which carries up to six months

in jail and a $2,000 fine. But if he has no criminal record, if he actually pleads guilty, he might not see any jail time, most likely probation, maybe a fine, maybe community service. But there's a bigger issue here. And the bigger issue is what this means. So San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins tweeted, the alleged battery of an unhoused member of our community is completely unacceptable. Mr. Gwyn will face appropriate consequences for his actions.

Now, he paid the $2,500 bail. He's currently out. He's required to make his first court appearance on February 17th as the legal process continues. Gwyn has gone public and apologized for what he did. He spoke to a local media out and said, quote, what they saw is very regrettable. I feel awful, not just because trouble or something like that, but because I put a tremendous amount of effort into helping this woman on the street. I'm very, very sorry.

I'm not going to defend myself. I'm not going to because I can't defend that. But there is a counter argument here, and the counter argument is, is that according to Gwen, this altercation resulted after multiple incidents with this woman. He says that he and other business owners called the police. They called social services more than two dozen times in the past two weeks. They tried to get her help. He had to clean her stuff off off of the sidewalk.

He even let her sleep in his doorway. But she would become erratic. She would knock trash cans down. And this ultimately hurt his business. homelessness very serious issue in san francisco and it's something that has been addressed by san francisco mayor london breed 15% reduction in unsheltered homelessness and 3.5% reduction in overall homelessness when almost pretty much every county in the state of california saw an increase and we saw that in san francisco because as a result of this pandemic and as a result

of the fact that San Francisco is a city and county, we were able to use our emergency powers in order to move quickly because we saw a 70% reduction in the number of shelter beds because they were congregate shelter beds and we were able to act and move quickly with dollars that we had available on the local level to then start to house people in hotels. But now I want to bring in a special guest. who actually spoke with Mr. Gwynn. And that is Dr. Amos C. Brown, the president of the local branch of the NAACP of San Francisco.

Reverend Brown, thank you for coming on sidebar. Now, I understand you spoke with Mr. Gwynn. What did he have to say? I've spoken with him twice, and he acknowledged that most unfortunately he lost it. And he was wrong. He apologized. and as president of the NACP

and one who believes in restorative justice deeply, I accepted his apology and I think we should let this be a learning for all of society and specifically for San Francisco. You don't leave persons who can't function themselves in the kind of a situation.

situation that the city, and unfortunately, far too many cities have done in terms of dealing with people who have mental challenges. The second lesson is we must be consistent and holistic and dealing with issues of mental illness and drug addiction and stop politicizing the issue. We have enough resource technology to just be human. woman, but we have not been doing that. This lady had been there for weeks, even when the street cleaner, Tereeper, came around. She wouldn't move. And she's been living in unsafe, inhumane, dangerous situation. And yet her society, supposedly letting her exercise her freedom,

but when a person is causing pain and trauma and stress for others, in my book, it should not be tolerated. It should be dealt with an illegal, compassionate, loving way. That's the bottom line. So, Dr. Brown, let me, let me follow up on that a few things. Number one, do you think that Mr. Gwynn should not have been criminally charged? Because this is a crime. This is an alleged crime. And someone would say, well, if you don't charge him, what stops somebody else from doing something similar?

Do you not think that he should be criminally charged? I think every tub must sit on his own bottom. And I'm dealing with a specific case here. And this specific case involves a man who's a business. person whose business was impacted negatively by the lady being present. And she became belligerent when he tried to deal with her. And you have many of these persons, not all of them, but many of have mental challenges, who refuse to accept services, who refuse to do the thing that is humane, logical, and sensible. So understand, I'm not supporting his reacting. But in this society,

we've been doing too much reacting. Too many politicians are reacting. We're don't charge them and locked them up. And we've had that happening nationally, even with the former president of the United States of America. Have we locked him up yet? No. We must be consistent. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. All I'm saying is this. Yes, he was wrong. He admitted his wrong. He's been charged. But we should not be pointing fingers at him. Where Mississippi, where I came from, the old saying is, when you point one finger, there are three was pointing back to you. And I think that it should be a major, major learning lesson for all of us. When I was on the Board of Supervisors in this city 20 years ago, I introduced legislation

called Care and Not Cash, meaning that you don't need money and some cash to do services. But the basic point was, these persons required wraparound services. But what does this city done? For their own tents out there. for people to grab and to live in. That's not humane. That's not civil. And that does not represent order. You have instances where persons with tents who are out of house have left needles,

feces, and the stent of urine where children are walking to school. Right here in San Francisco, we can't have our cake and eat it too. We must be totally accountable and responsible. when it comes to this serious issue. Let me ask you a question. Is this a case where you think the problem is being ignored by maybe London Breed and the government, or is it being mishandled the wrong way? Because if you listen to London Breed, she's of the opinion. It is a serious issue and she's trying to address it.

But is she addressing it in the wrong way, in your opinion? No, no, no. You can't blame the mayor on this at all. It's a societal problem. As I said earlier, we must work as a dream team and stop being irresponsible as individuals, as public policymakers, as faith leaders, as community-based organization executives. We've got to take total responsibility, I repeat, for what is happening. But what we like to do is politicization.

And we want to jump at the mayor and bring her. She's been very outspoken and has asked for departments to do this. the right thing. But when you have certain, not all of them, but many of them call themselves progressive liberals who says, oh, leave them alone, they have their freedom. We give them a tent. And because you all have not put them all in a house, you are responsible. But wait a minute, when you put some of these persons in a house and they have mental challenge, their own drugs, and others are not even working by their own brow, they will, end up back out on the street, homeless.

So we got to call for sensible, total accountability and responsibility. And focusing on that for a second, focusing on that for a second, according to Mr. Gwynn, they called the police, they called social services multiple times, nothing really happened. In your experience, is that's what's happening? Is there no response? Are they not coming? I mean, why is this, why does this keep happening?

Well, let me tell you what's going on. Let me tell you from my personal experience. Okay. Right here in the Fillmore area, it's about two or three miles away from the site of this unfortunate situation. There was an Asian without house person who had been there in the parking lot of Safeway store. She was in filth and garbage. But what did I do as president of the NACP?

I worked collaboratively with Captain Jackson of Northern Station and the department of public works of the city, the Department for the Unhoused, and I worked as a team, and I have pictures that I can show you where we were able, respectfully and lovingly, gather up her things,

put them in a black bag, and that very later is now in a place where she's receiving quality services. This should and must be done all over the place. Right. That's the way you deal with situations like this. Well, Dr. Brown, I hope more people follow your advice and follow your example because that's a very respectful

and kind way to address the issue. And I hope that people listen to this. Dr. Brown, thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it. And thanks for coming on Sidebar. Thank you very much. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.