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San Francisco art gallery owner arrested for spraying homeless woman with hose
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A downtown San Francisco art gallery owner was taken into custody Wednesday after cell phone video showed him intentionally spraying a homeless woman with a hose, prompting outrage and condemnation.
An arrest warrant was issued for Collier Gwin Wednesday for misdemeanor battery, San Francisco District Attorney Brook Jenkins announced in a statement.
CBS San Francisco captured footage of Gwin being taken into custody Wednesday afternoon near his gallery.
“The alleged battery of an unhoused member of our community is completely unacceptable. Mr. Gwin will face appropriate consequences for his actions,” Jenkins said in her statement.
The incident occurred on Jan. 9, according to the DA’s office. The video, which was posted to social media, showed a man spraying a homeless woman with water for several seconds while she was lying on the sidewalk.
In an interview with CBS San Francisco last week, Gwin admitted to being the man in the video. Gwin is the owner of the Foster Gwin Gallery in the city’s Financial District, according to CBS San Francisco, and the incident occurred steps away from his gallery.
CBS San Francisco
“What they saw is very regrettable,” he told CBS San Francisco last week. “I feel awful, not just because I want to get out of trouble, or something like that, but because I’d put a tremendous amount of effort into helping this woman.”
Speaking to reporters on Jan. 13, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the incident reminded her of how civil rights protesters were treated in the 1960s.
“When I saw it, all I can think about is what happened during the civil rights movement,” Breed said. “This is sadly, at a time when African Americans were fighting for our rights to be considered equal in this country. Even at that time law enforcement and others used water hoses to stop protesters. And it just kind of takes us back, unfortunately, to that time. And no other human being should be able to do that to any other human being, period. As far as I’m concerned, it’s assault.”
If convicted as charged, Gwin faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $2,000 fine, the DA’s office said.
Since the video went viral, the victim has been receiving assistance from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, according to CBS San Francisco.
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GOP, Democratic strategists on Biden’s next steps with calls for him to drop out growing
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U.S. troops leaving Niger bases this weekend and in August after coup, officials say
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The U.S. will remove all its forces and equipment from a small base in Niger this weekend and fewer than 500 remaining troops will leave a critical drone base in the West African country in August, ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline set in an agreement with the new ruling junta, the American commander there said Friday.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman said in an interview that a number of small teams of 10-20 U.S. troops, including special operations forces, have moved to other countries in West Africa. But the bulk of the forces will go, at least initially, to Europe.
Tech. Sgt. Christopher Dyer / AP
Niger’s ouster of American troops following a coup last year has broad ramifications for the U.S. because it is forcing troops to abandon the critical drone base that was used for counterterrorism missions in the Sahel.
Ekman and other U.S. military leaders have said other West African nations want to work with the U.S. and may be open to an expanded American presence. He did not detail the locations, but other U.S. officials have pointed to the Ivory Coast and Ghana as examples.
Ekman, who serves as the director for strategy at U.S. Africa Command, is leading the U.S. military withdrawal from the small base at the airport in Niger’s capital of Niamey and from the larger counterterrorism base in the city of Agadez. He said there will be a ceremony Sunday marking the completed pullout from the airport base, then those final 100 troops and the last C-17 transport aircraft will depart.
Speaking to reporters from The Associated Press and Reuters from the U.S. embassy in Niamey, Ekman said that while portable buildings and vehicles that are no longer useful will be left behind, a lot of larger equipment will be pulled out. For example, he said 18 4,000-pound (1,800-kilograms) generators worth more than $1 million each will be taken out of Agadez.
Unlike the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said the U.S. is not destroying equipment or facilities as it leaves.
“Our goal in the execution is, leave things in as good a state as possible,” he said. “If we went out and left it a wreck or we went out spitefully, or if we destroyed things as we went, we’d be foreclosing options” for future security relations.
AFP via Getty
Niger’s ruling junta ordered U.S. forces out of the country in the wake of last July’s ouster of the country’s democratically elected president by mutinous soldiers. French forces had also been asked to leave as the junta turned to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for security assistance.
Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup in October, triggering U.S. laws restricting the military support and aid.
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