- By Adam Shanks | Examiner staff writer |
- Oct 17, 2023 Updated 15 hrs ago (SFExaminer.com)
San Francisco supervisors unanimously passed a law Monday that limits private security guards’ right to wield a firearm.
The law, drafted in response to the killing of Banko Brown outside a Walgreens on Market Street earlier this year, was sponsored by Supervisor Dean Preston.
Assuming the bill is signed into law by Mayor London Breed, security guards will no longer be allowed to draw firearms to protect property. Current city law allows them to draw their firearms “in lawful response to an actual and specific threat to a person or persons and/or property.”
Preston’s bill removes “property” from that list of justifications.
Though an adjustment of just a few words, the bill attempts to lessen the likelihood that a person is confronted with a firearm due to suspected shoplifting.
“This is unacceptable. I believe strongly that nobody should ever have to die just because they are suspected of stealing,” Preston said at a September committee meeting on the bill.
Though sponsored by the Board of Supervisors’ most politically left-of-center member, the bill won broad support across ideological lines.
Supervisor Catherine Stefani, a staunch gun-control advocate, supported the bill and lamented in a September committee meeting that the number of privately employed security guards dwarfs the number of sworn police officers in San Francisco. During the same meeting, Supervisor Matt Dorsey noted that the San Francisco Police Department’s policies for its officers in wielding a firearm are stricter than those for privately employed security guards.
“It makes no sense whatsoever that we would have a different standard that would be more permissive for property when sworn officers have a more rigorous standard,” Dorsey said.
Walgreens security guard Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, 33, shot and killed Brown, 24, during an altercation on April 27 after Anthony confronted Brown for allegedly attempting to steal merchandise from the Market Street store.
Brown’s killing roiled San Francisco, which sparked protests and prompted advocates to rally outside the District Attorney’s Office and inside the Board of Supervisors’ chambers.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins — who initially rejected calls to release security footage of the shooting — decided not to pursue charges against Anthony. That announcement, with which Jenkins included footage, prompted calls for a review of the case by the state Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Footage of the incident shows Brown and Anthony wrestled to the ground. Anthony released Brown and drew his gun. Brown made a gesture toward Anthony, who shot Brown as he backed outside the store’s doors.
Anthony told investigators that Brown had both threatened to stab him and spit on him, and “the shock from that made me draw.”
“I felt I was in danger. And if I let that person go I’d be harmed,” he told authorities.
It’s unclear exactly how the altered law would have applied to Anthony, who claimed self-defense in the incident.
The shooting also raised questions about how security guards — who are not sworn police officers — are trained on the use of firearms and how many of them are deployed in San Francisco.
Walgreens has been among the retailers at the center of debate over The City’s ongoing response to retail theft. Several of its stores have closed throughout San Francisco and elsewhere in recent years, although the company’s CEO acknowledged in January that it may have “cried too much last year” over shoplifting.
