“So I don’t have any words prepared today. I just want you to feel our pain. I don’t know if you can at this point, based off your policy choices
Lia McGeever, an LGBT activist, vociferously condemned the San Francisco Board of Supervisors following the decision by District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to decline to prosecute a security guard that shot and killed a transgender shoplifter last Thursday.
“So I don’t have any words prepared today. I just want you to feel our pain. I don’t know if you can at this point, based off your policy choices, but I have to pretend you have some form of empathy left. So, I am going to spend the next minute screaming cause that is what is going on in here,” McGeever, clad in an orange facemask, says before removing it. “That is what the trans genocide in this country, in this city, has brought me to.”
McGeever then screamed for a protracted period.
On April 27, Banko Brown, a black transgender individual, was shot and killed by a San Francisco security officer working at a local Walgreens. Days later, protesters held a rally and demanded the pharmacy retail chain store fire the guard.
“It’s insane that Walgreens has armed security, there’s nothing in that store worth a human life, and Walgreens is not taking care of our community,” Jessica Nowlan of the Young Women’s Freedom Center told a local Fox affiliate on Monday. “We demand an end to armed security.”
However, on Tuesday, District Attorney Jenkins held a press conference in which she declined to press charges. “After careful review of all of the evidence gathered by the San Francisco Police Department in this case, my office will not be pursuing murder charges, at this time, in connection to the shooting,” Jenkins said in a prepared statement to the press.
“We reviewed witness statements, statements from the suspect, and video footage of the incident and it does not meet the People’s burden to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that the suspect is guilty of a crime,” the public defender insisted. “The evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger and acted in self-defense.”
Dissatisfied with Jenkins and San Francisco mayor London Breed, McGeever offered, “I hate this, I hate what you’ve done to us. I hate what you’re doing to us. I hate you, Board of Supervisors. I hate you, London Breed. I hate you, Jenkins,” the activist said.
“There’s a lot of performative people on this board who will say one thing and support Black people, homeless people, trans people, and then immediately stab you in the face — being racist, transphobic, anti-homeless,” McGeever said at another point in her speech.
San Francisco has struggled to combat crime and theft in recent years. Whole Foods closed its central location in early April following deteriorating safety conditions.
Tuesday, Nordstrom joined the corporate exodus from the city, closing both its San Francisco locations citing rampant stealing.
“A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees, coupled with the fact that these significant issues are preventing an economic recovery of the area,” a spokesman for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, a commercial real estate group, told the San Francisco Standard, following the announcement.
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