New Details Emerge About SFPD Arrests and Use of Force During Trans March

One after another, speakers told the commission they had come to celebrate — and instead watched officers wade into crowds with batons and rifles.

“There is no reasonable world where armed police officers should be allowed to instigate violence by charging into an unarmed crowd of thousands,” one speaker said.

A trans resident named Leah said people were shoved and handled aggressively, some left with bruises, and that one person reported a concussion. Another speaker, who said she had fled political persecution in Russia, told the commission the officers reminded her of what she had left behind: “people who have been sanctioned by the state to protect us, [who] attack us.”

Several framed the response as a betrayal of the city’s reputation as a refuge. “If trans people cannot feel safe in this city in San Francisco, what message does that send to the rest of the country?” Leah said.

Chief Derrick Lew, appearing before the commission during his regular report, pushed back on what he called misperceptions about the operation.

“The San Francisco Police Department supports the LGBTQ community full stop,” he said.

The Trans March arrests, he added, “were not targeted at the transgender community” but at “a few people amongst thousands of peaceful participants who chose to break the law” — conduct he said would have drawn arrests “at any event.”

Lew said the proximity to Compton’s Cafeteria was not chosen “to demean, offend or disrespect,” but was simply where suspects were encountered.

By the chief’s account, around 7 p.m., officers saw several people using paint-filled, Super Soaker-style water guns to spray buildings, vehicles and security cameras along the route. A police drone tracked two suspects to Turk and Taylor, Lew said, and captured footage of them stuffing the water guns into a paper bag and stripping off outer clothing and face coverings to “blend back into” the crowd.

When officers moved in, he said, a crowd of roughly 300 surrounded them, linked arms, chanted “let them go” and threw glass bottles; one person climbed onto a patrol car and another pried open its door to try to free the detained suspects.

What began as “targeted enforcement,” Lew said, “evolved into a crowd management situation” after officers met interference.

He reported six arrests at the march, on charges that included felony vandalism with a hate-crime enhancement, conspiracy, resisting arrest and battery on an officer, and more than 20 acts of vandalism, mostly to security and license-plate-reader Flock cameras. In an earlier statement to KQED, SFPD reported five Trans March arrests.

At the Stud Alley Pride Weekend party the following night, Lew said, a crowd that grew past 100 blocked Kissling Street with boulders and later built barricades on Washburn Street out of wood, traffic cones and plumbing pipe, spray-painting anti-police graffiti.

Officers declared an unlawful assembly and made 20 arrests, mostly for unlawful assembly and resisting or delaying an officer, he said; two officers suffered minor injuries, and a group slashed the tires of two Waymo vehicles. In the past, the party, a six-year SoMa tradition, had been monitored rather than shut down.

The sharpest exchange of the night came over use of force. In response to questions from Commission Vice President Kevin Benedicto, Lew confirmed there were eight uses of force at the Trans March and one at the block party — but said he did not have details on what those incidents entailed — drawing repeated criticism from the public.

“You’ve clearly and carefully, meticulously tracked instances of vandalism at the Trans March,” one speaker said, “but it’s extremely troubling that you can’t seem to cite even one use of force.”

Others said the count did not match what they witnessed. One commenter described seeing an officer knock a woman to the ground beside her; another said she encountered an older woman, jeans torn and bleeding, who had been pushed.

Several returned to the same question: why officers moved into a dense crowd to arrest suspects already identified by drone, rather than making arrests later.

“Who put property over human life and health?” asked one Mission District resident.

Others questioned the use of drones, and Flock automated license-plate cameras at LGBTQ events, citing reports that such data has been shared with agencies in other states.

Karen Fleshman, a District 5 resident, told the commission that cameras funded by a single tech billionaire — in reference to Ripple founder Chris Larsen, whose $9.4 million gift funded a new crime investigations center — had spread across the city, and that “the people of San Francisco don’t want a surveillance state.”

The Department of Police Accountability said it is auditing SFPD’s use of surveillance and license-plate readers, an inquiry it opened in April.

Not everyone objected to police at community celebrations. San Francisco police have long had a heavy presence during Pride, including marching in the main parade — something that has drawn objection from many in the LGBTQ community in recent years.

A retired police officer said officers had helped make a recent Juneteenth celebration a success, and Commissioner Mattie Scott pushed for a prevention-focused approach, with community “ambassadors” and strategic planning ahead of large events.

Commissioners Benedicto and Cindy Elias asked that Fielder’s letter and the department’s response be posted publicly and agendized for a future meeting, and pressed Lew on holding a town hall of the kind SFPD convenes after officer-involved shootings. Lew said he was in talks with supervisors about some form of public discussion and that the department’s response to Fielder is due July 16.

For many who spoke, that was not enough.

“Shame on all of you,” said activist Michael Petrelis, faulting the commission for not formally placing the Trans March on its agenda. “When cops show up, trouble starts. That is the lesson I take away from what happened.”