Today, Supervisor Fielder sent a “letter of inquiry” to San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, Police Chief Derrick Lew, and Controller Greg Wagner.
She’s asking for more information about arrests that were made at the trans march on Friday, and the party known as Stud Alley on Saturday. SFPD told KALW in a statement that 25 people were arrested at the two events.
The letter asks more than 20 questions including whether the police department tried any de-escalation strategies before making arrests, why officers were deployed in full tactical gear, and how much money the city spent responding to the incidents.
“ From my perspective from seeing the footage, it seemed outsized because we're talking about presumably unarmed protesters," Fielder explained. "I understand that according to news reports, the police were deployed to address property destruction or graffiti. And so I wanted to understand the department's policy around their graffiti response policies or to, in general, to block parties that are permitted or non-permitted.”
Outcry from the Bay's queer community has been spreading online. Linden, a community organizer who was at both the Trans March and Stud Alley says the police response felt targeted.
"People were chanting at them. There was one individual who was aggressively flossing at the police for quite a long time."
"Flossing like the dance?" I clarified.
"Yes, yes. That was kind of the spirit of this. There was no violence. People were not trying to escalate the situation. We just wanted to exist."
Fielder is asking for a response by July 14th.
