Bluoz

from the Examiner


A 15-year-old girl and 43-year-old woman were standing at Sixth and Minna streets about 2:15 a.m. when the gunfire began, said police spokesman Officer Carlos Manfredi.

The girl was struck in both legs, and the woman in the torso and leg, according to police. Both were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. Police said Monday they were expected to survive.

Passion Cafe says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:35 am

Thank you, all. After the wonderful altruistic support we’ve had since and before the incident at Passion Cafe, we’ve decided against selling the restaurant. Our initial goal was to create a change for the betterment of the residents in the Sixth Street corridor. After 35 years of building South of Market there had been one continuing desire and that was to bring change to Sixth Street which was festering throughout the SOMA neighborhood; as contractors, we took the most blighted building on the Street and we accomplished our goal and have encouraged many new businesses to use us as a model to bring their ideas to the Mid-Market, Sixth Street corridor. No one could have predicted the economy, consequently we decided to operate Passion Cafe and we’ve had much success and have been lauded from State Senator Mark Leno and have received awards from City, State and Federal entities, too many to mention (except, thank you Supervisor Kim, S.F. Travel, CVE, Mayors Gavin Newsom and Ed Lee, Urban Solutions). The show of gratitude has been humbling. It’s ironic that on the morning of the incident, I had come early to have someone hang a for sale sign early in the day as to be safe not to injure anyone below, if not for that I would never have been the recipient of a sad, deranged attacker. We had come to that decision feeling very proud of our accomplishment. We’ve survived, in large part, because of our supporters. After a confusing period, I would like to put all speculation to rest and again, thank everyone for their continued support and encouragement. Passion Cafe will remain, amongst our new neighbors, from Burning Man to Twitter to the International Museum of American Art to all the other eateries we’ve encouraged to move to the new, vibrant Sixth Street and Mid-Market. Please continue your patience, big things are on their way.

Steve Barton, who is referencing an earlier incident

via H brown

boys and girls,

Sometimes this shit just pisses me off so
badly that I have to mention it. It happens
every Wednesday and Sunday when the Farmers
Market is at UN Plaza.

These little ancient Chinese ladies come
and line up alongside the BART railing at 7th
and Market where there are around 2 heroin
dealers and one purchaser of stolen goods for
every square foot of real estate. These women
are there to sell the groceries from their
cupboards to get the cash to pay for their
rent ...

Who do the cops go after?

The little Chinese ladies! This morning
when I went by on my way to coffee at just
after 8pm there was only one woman selling
her groceries to pay her rent.

And, 6 of SFPD's finest had encircled her
and one was writing her a citation for, "She
has no permit!!!" (yelled the female API
cop doing the writing).

I noted to the gathering of fully armed
officers that the dealers who normally
inhabit all 4 corners of the intersection
had just ducked into the coffee shops and
if they wanted to do real police work they
could go after them. Hell, the cops know
this. Selling drugs and buying stolen
goods is a full time job and in the 6 years
I've lived at this intersection I've gotten
to recognize the couple of dozen or so regular
criminal 'staff'. The cops know who they are
too but they'd rather go after a little old
Chinese woman and make her life more miserable.

Greg Suhr, you should be ashamed!!!

Giants win and pick up a game (6 back with
20 to go) and have Cain on hill against Padres
at 3pm today).

h.

Hi, H --

Would rather you shared this version, in which case on the record is fine.

Rgds/M

--

Thank you. I think actually the ladies are selling stuff from donated
food boxes that they don't happen to need, but the point holds. Cops not
picking on someone their own size when a clear choice is presented to them.

It's all about denial that we live in a place with income contrasts on a
Third World scale, which is why we have Third World phenomena like
homelessness, begging, garbage-picking, and unofficial street vending.
Drug dealers are accepted as an inevitability, but little old ladies
selling food are evidence of economic facts the city doesn't want to
admit. They're punished for being messengers.

But you knew all that.

If you ask me they should either take 869MPC off the books or make
vendor's permits easier to get.

It bugs me that I was doing a bunch of citation defense for COH during
the past year and those vendor ladies didn't ever seem to turn up in the
courtroom. Seems like they're afraid to appear in court even though the
DA would be likely to dismiss or at least agree to a suspended fine if
they show they're receiving social services. (Heaven knows why social
services would help people repent from the rational act of selling extra
food, but there you are, DA logic.) Last I heard, the Coalition was
arranging to help people verify receipt of services although without
Lawyers' Committee backup the traffic court representation program is
dormant. As you probably know, Bob Offer-Westort is the guy to ask there.

Rgds,

Martha Bridegam
http://lodginginpublic.blogspot.com

addendum, also in comments

Hi all,

This is Martha Bridegam, author of the comment above about court representation.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean to make the unfriendly suggestion that the vendor ladies don't need their food boxes in general -- just to suggest that they might be keeping some items for themselves out of the food boxes while quite reasonably deciding to sell other items that they needed or liked less.

Also, to be clear, I haven't approached any of the UN Plaza ladies about representation. It's just that I can't remember ever seeing an elderly lady contesting a peddling charge, either on a Coalition on Homelessness traffic court calendar or in traffic court on her own, neither in the past year nor during a period about 10 years ago when I was previously active in citation defense.

This makes me think the vendor ladies must not be contesting the tickets they get. Perhaps they simply hadn't heard about the Coalition's representation program when it was available, and/or they didn't/don't realize it could be to their advantage to appear in traffic court.

A pity.

boys and girls,

Watch this blatant drug deal go down
in front of where the antique Chinese women
are selling cheap food to the poor. Someone
else is selling something to the poor but as
the big cop in yesterday's video told me:
"You gotta prove it.".

Bottom line is that it's easy to prove that
the old women selling food don't have a
permit. It's hard to prove that the prescription
drug exchange that went down in front of the same
camera is a crime.

Hey, if you're an SFPD police chief, you take
the low hanging fruit.

Ignore the hard drug sales from a seller and to
a buyer who just might shoot your ass.

Attack the little old Chinese woman selling her
food to pay her rent.

Oh yeah, this is a great police chief.

Giants just taking a day off before their rebirth.

Video of drug deal is in attachment.

Does it still surprise you that we Skid Row
residents can catch these 24/7/365 dealers on
video and the cops can't?

h.