by Randy Shaw on March 25, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Tenderloin sidewalk
Chiu Demands Plaintiffs’ Names Be Available to Drug Dealers
The lawsuit challenging San Francisco’s use of the Tenderloin as a drug containment zone kept plaintiffs’ names anonymous. It’s common for lawsuits to identify plaintiffs as “Jane Roe” and use other protective names when their safety is at risk.
But City Attorney David Chiu’s office filed a motion last week to make plaintiffs’ names public. Plaintiffs expected their names would go confidentially to the city attorney. They know the city attorney can question them about their claims. But making their names public enables drug dealers to potentially retaliate against them.
Why is Chiu trying to intimidate those who filed this lawsuit as a last resort to protect their families?
How does publicizing plaintiffs’ names help the city’s defense against their claims?
What drives the City Attorney’s scorched earth defense strategy?
None of the plaintiffs are seeking money damages from San Francisco.
Consider the claims of one of the Tenderloin plaintiffs:
“Jane Roe works full-time as a housekeeper. Her husband works full-time as a cook. Both are immigrants. Neither speaks much English. They have two daughters, ages 9 and 5. The family lives in an apartment on Ellis Street, between Hyde and Larkin, in the center of the Tenderloin. They share the apartment with another family with young children. Open-air drug deals occur on the sidewalk in front of Jane Roe’s apartment building. She describes the drug-dealing as happening ‘all day, every day.’ Those involved in narcotics sales block the entrance to her building.
When Jane Roe enters or leaves her apartment, she encounters drug dealers, users openly injecting or smoking narcotics, and people lying on the sidewalk who appear unconscious or dead. On one occasion, a person in front of Jane Roe’s building threatened to cut her throat. On other occasions, people threatened her with knives and hammers.” (See Complaint)
The City Attorney’s motion would make Jane Roe’s identity available to the same constituency that has threatened her with knives and hammers. San Francisco’s City Attorney seeks to give an opportunity for retaliation to very violent criminals.
What Motivates City Attorney Chiu?
Why has the City Attorney taken this stand? David Chiu knows full well that the city uses the Tenderloin as a drug containment zone. So why not use his power as city attorney to end the practice? Why align with the forces jeopardizing families’ lives when he could use his power to protect them?
The City Attorney is under no obligation to aggressively defend a racist, anti-immigrant containment policy that shames San Francisco. That’s why San Francisco has an independently elected city attorney—it enables them to do the right thing despite pressure from other politicians.
What is motivating David Chiu here?
I’ve thought a lot about this. I see the answer as going to the deep, underlying class bias that the City Attorney’s office and many in City Hall have toward those living in the Tenderloin.
They see the plaintiffs as breaching the boundaries of what is akin to their caste.
Politicians promote the Tenderloin for its kids and ethnic and racial diversity—but when Tenderloin residents rise up and demand equal protection under the law, well, they feel they’ve gone too far.
Chiu’s City Attorney’s office feels its their job to remind Tenderloin residents of their place.
Think I’m exaggerating? Why else did the city attorney’s office file this motion? It wants to intimidate the plaintiffs. To keep them subordinate. And maybe convince them their lives would be safer if they withdraw from the case.
The Tenderloin plaintiffs are raising claims that the entire city knows is true. City Hall expects low-income immigrant families in the Tenderloin to feel grateful that they are allowed to even live in affluent San Francisco—they believe that suing to assert their constitutional rights to equal protection under the law goes too far.
Consider these quotes from City Attorney motion:
“Plaintiffs here have litigated their case in the press to demand the changes they seek in court.”
Response: It is common practice for attorneys to seek media coverage when they file lawsuits. This is not “litigating the case in the press.” City Attorney Chiu’s office regularly issues press releases when they file lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs, apparently dissatisfied with the outcome of the 2020 Action, filed the instant action again alleging the City has unlawfully treated the Tenderloin as a ‘containment zone’ for drug dealing and abuse, violence, homelessness, and other social ills and again make nearly identical claims.”
Response: None of the plaintiffs were parties to the 2020 lawsuit. That suit resulted in a federal court injunction against San Francisco preventing the city from continuing to violate federal and local COVID laws in the Tenderloin.
“Plaintiffs rely entirely on identical, conclusory statements that the public identification of plaintiff, e.g., revealing her [or his] name or precise address in court filings, would put her [or him] at risk of being hurt or killed in retaliation by persons involved in the illegal narcotics trade in the Tenderloin. However, Plaintiffs offer no evidence to support this contention as it relates to their names and submit no declarations from themselves or even their counsel. The absence of any evidence of potential “retaliation by persons involved in the illegal narcotics trade in the Tenderloin” is particularly deficient here. Plaintiffs must show “that a reasonable person would believe that the threat might actually be carried out.” (Emphasis added).
Response: The City Attorney is telling the court that a Tenderloin family threatened by drug dealers in front of their home needs more evidence that “the threat might actually be carried out.” Must she or a family member be assaulted? Killed? What level of violence must they suffer to meet the city’s proposed evidence threshold? Does City Attorney Chiu’s office really believe that drug dealers send letters to future victims announcing their plans?
Many of the plaintiffs’ accounts of Tenderloin life are confirmed in the city’s own documents. The February 2024 Planning Commission report—“Tenderloin Youth Services Gap Analysis”—-includes quotes from Focus Groups and Interviews in the Tenderloin. These quotes include: “There are dealers harassing us on the street and nobody is doing anything about it.” (Transitional Aged Youth Focus Group) “When my child walks on the street they offer them free drugs.” (Focus Group with Spanish Speaking Parents) “After school programs are surrounded by tents and drug dealing activities.” (Focus Group with Arabic Speaking Parents)
These comments are anonymous in the report. Apparently what’s good for the Planning Department is unacceptable for the City Attorney’s office.
Showing Contempt for Tenderloin Families
The City Attorney’s contempt for Tenderloin families gets even worse. It’s motion states:
“Plaintiffs should not be permitted to use their anonymity as a sword to press their case in the media while simultaneously shielding themselves from public attention.”
A sword to press their case? These plaintiffs are trying to survive in the containment zone San Francisco has created in their neighborhood. This lawsuit was a last resort!
“Shielding themselves from public attention”? I thought the city attorney was angry that the plaintiffs sought public attention in the media.
The “principle” David Chiu’s office is defending is keeping the Tenderloin a drug containment zone. Now and forever. Anyone challenging this must have their safety and well-being threatened.
What do the police say about all this? Jane Roe alleges in the complaint:
“She rarely sees uniformed members of the San Francisco Police Department on foot patrol in the neighborhood. When she has seen SFPD officers, she has asked for help with the people who have taken over the sidewalks. In response, officers have told her that there is nothing they can do because, ‘the City gives them more protection than you.’”
Some may ask: if it’s so bad in the Tenderloin why don’t these plaintiffs move? Jane Roe answers this in the complaint: “I really wish my daughters could grow up in a better place, which does not have so much corruption, drugs, bad people. It is a frustration I have every day. We don’t have enough money to move.”
Threatening low-income immigrant families is not what San Francisco should be about. The mayor, candidates for mayor, and the Board of Supervisors should demand that the City Attorney withdraw its disclosure motion.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
