The death of two senior citizens in San Francisco is forcing city leaders to reassure the public that restorative justice policies don't necessarily equate to tolerating violent criminals.
Over the span of half a day, two men over the age of 75 were killed in broad daylight on the city's streets on Thursday. At 8:30 a.m. that morning, an 84-year-old man walking down the street was attacked as a man ran across the street and pushed him over. The man died two days later. Police arrested two suspects after reviewing grisly security camera footage that quickly went viral.
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A few hours later, famed private investigator and attorney Jack Palladino, 76, was killed in a robbery attempt outside his home. Palladino, a folk hero whose clients included Bill Clinton's presidential election committee, the Hells Angels, the Black Panthers, and musician Courtney Love in court, died in a hospital four days after he was attacked by two men trying to steal his camera.
Two suspects were eventually arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, elder abuse, attempted robbery, kidnapping to commit a robbery, and false imprisonment.
Both the city's mayor and district attorney responded forcefully to the incidents, attempting to push back against the idea that they have resigned to a new normal of spiraling violence.
“If you commit a crime in San Francisco and hurt people, you will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, said in a Tuesday press conference. “That is a commitment I have from our police chief and district attorney.”
The same day, controversial left-wing San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said he intends to file murder charges against the two suspects.
“My heart goes out to the families of both victims for these senseless, violent attacks. These horrific crimes cause seniors and all of us to feel unsafe,” Boudin said in a statement. “Violent crimes are my top priority. We will hold the people who committed these crimes accountable: We will prosecute them for murder.”
The two killings follow a string of incidents in the past few months that have put San Francisco's Democratic leaders on the defensive.
On New Year's Eve 2020, a parolee who struck and killed two women after driving a stolen car through a red light, even after being detained by police on suspicion of possessing a stolen vehicle just hours prior, drew outrage from the community.
For many San Francisco residents, that incident was the last straw. Shortly after, a recall petition against Boudin gained thousands of signatures.
"We need to work with the police and with all other law enforcement agencies that we partner with to do a better job at keeping the city safe," Boudin said at the time. "I can't do it without the police, they can't do it without me, and parole certainly can't do it if nobody even tells them somebody they supervise has been arrested. And that is exactly what happened here on Dec. 20 and again with a different agency on Dec. 29."
Critics pointed to Boudin's radical overhaul of the city's prosecutor's office, which included firing multiple attorneys and issuing a new policy of declining to prosecute a broad swath of misdemeanor offenses. Boudin, the son of two former members of the Weather Underground (a left-wing terrorist group), also ended the practice of cash bail for most offenses. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called his Jan. 2020 victory crucial to "fundamentally transforming our racist and broken criminal justice system."
Breed has supported Boudin's policies and has targeted the city's police department, claiming they are a source of tension and violence for residents. In June 2020, the mayor's office announced new " priorities" to "address structural inequities." Those policies included "ending the use of policies in response to non-criminal activity, addressing police bias and strengthening accountability, demilitarizing the police, and promoting economic justice."
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In his " State of Justice" address at the end of January, Boudin hit back against his critics and touted the fact that overall crime had dropped in San Francisco last year despite a double-digit surge in homicides, burglaries, and arson.
“I remain steadfast in my commitment to dismantling racist practices and building a legal system that respects the poor, empowers the oppressed, and treats no one as above the law,” he said.
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