Posted on 01/10/2023 6:39:31 PM PST by Morgana
The owner of an art gallery in San Francisco has been caught on camera hosing down a homeless woman on the sidewalk as temperatures hit 49 degrees.
Collier Gwin, who runs Foster Gwin Gallery in the Financial District, was seen on Monday leaning casually against the gate of a restaurant while using a garden hose to blast water at the woman as she screamed in fright.
Local businesses were quick to condemn his actions, while scores of enraged social media users sought revenge by leaving a string of dreadful reviews online - causing the gallery's rating on Google to plunge to just one star.
After admitting to being the man in the video, Gwin, whose clients once included David Rockefeller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, tried to defend his actions, claiming she had become psychotic and was turning over garbage cans.
'I said you have to move, I cannot clean the street, move down,' Gwin told The San Francisco Chronicle. 'She starts screaming bellingent things, spitting, yelling at me... at that point she was so out of control... I spray her with the hose and say move, move. I will help you.' He added he is a 'champion' for trying to help her previously.
The chef of Brioche Cafe, who captured the video, said he saw the scene unfold while making an early morning delivery around 6am.
'I was shocked,' Edson Garcia told The Chronicle. 'I know that lady.'
The video has since had almost nine million views. But despite the widespread backlash, Gwin stuck by his actions.
'You know, spraying her’s not the solution, but spraying her was something that woke her up, and that calmed her down,' Gwin said. 'So am I sorry? I’m only sorry that... my way of helping her countlessly has gotten nothing done.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
To bad he didn’t shoot her.
The authorities will do nothing to solve problems.
The authorities will get upset with anyone who attempts to solve problems.
In the future, you will own nothing, you will be surrounded by problems that no one is allowed to solve, and you will be happy.
The homeless situation in SF is the most damning evidence against Newsom. He became Mayor of San Francisco in 2004 promising to do something about that problem... it only got worse with him as Mayor... and now it’s probably beyond repair.
These homeless people need some tough love. It is for their own good.
She looks mentally ill. You can’t use tough love on mental illness. Where is her family?
At some point, vagrancy laws will need to be enforced.
Create an FDR-style Civilian Conservation Corps - for vagrants.
Either get off the street, or the State will have places where you can work for a living, and get treatment.
Obviously they either don’t care or she doesn’t have one and there’s no state hospitals anymore where she can be kept.
Santa Cruz has so many tents on the river that dumps into the ocean, it looks like a war camp.
Probably 600-700 tents and various other tent like dwellings out there.
“Where is her family?”
It is impossible to get help for a mentally ill family member. Maybe if you are very rich, and can buy them a place in some locked ward somewhere, maybe then.
Or maybe if THEY are really rich, and you go in front of the court and say “they are squandering our family fortune and they must be stopped”, maybe then.
Otherwise, fuggedaboutit as we say in NJ.
Believe me, I speak from my own experience. With people who tried and tried to get help for family members and were failed, utterly, by all who might have helped them. Both family members died by their own hands, but that was their choice, you see. So all is well in the eyes of our society.
At least these two only killed themselves, they weren’t out koshing others. But those folks are allowed to chose freely too, aren’t they, nowadays?
She was camping out on the doorstep for MONTHS. Police and city services had been called 25 times in the past week. At some point you have to clean up your stoop so customers can enter your business.
In a rational society the homeless woman would be forced into (1) homeless shelter (2) mental hospital or (3) narco rehab program. Letting her live in the elements is not what a kind society does, but of course SF is run by ACLU types.
The Gallery owner looks just like someone out of Central Casting during I Dream of Genie or Bewitched.
Good for the owner.
“widespread backlash”
Yeah, right. “Widespread support and cheering” is probably more like it. People who “backlash” have never had mentally ill drug abusers camping, sleeping, urinating and defecating on their doorstep and spitting on you and cursing you. They’ve never tried to run a business with the bums blocking patrons from getting in and scaring prospective customers off.
The bums and druggies can destroy a business very quickly.
The city won’t do anything about the problem. I’m glad he did.
Maybe she has no family.
Like most of these cases, I suspect her family worked hard to stop her descent into hell. They tried to shelter her, get her off of drugs and alcohol, tried to get her therapy, counseling and help. But she relapsed and relapsed and relapsed, rejected help, took too much money from family, and never got any better. Family couldn’t get her admitted to a program or, if they did, she walked out. Finally, after years or maybe decades, the family said “enough-is-enough, we cannot go on like this” and cut ties with her. They might still find her on the street now and then and take her food.
Some people get their problems under control and become productive. Others, maybe due to serious mental health problems, just get worse and worse.
I’ve seen various forms of this with friends, family, and kid’s friends.
Drive north on I-5 toward Portland. The homeless camps start near Salem and get worse and worse the closer you get to Portland. When you reach the city, they are everywhere.
I don’t agree with mistreating people. However, there is nothing kind by allowing crazy people to sleep outside and harass and harm innocent people.
Are bums now a protected class? I know I wouldn’t want some bum hanging around my place of business panhandling stinking cluttering up the place ding drugs acting weird etc. good for him. May all of the virtue signaling a$$holes that feigned outrage have bums move into their front yards
Look up "mental institutions of the past" and you'll find all sorts of articles condemning them for their bad treatment of patients and lots of photos. The photos beg the question: "Are these people better or worse off in an institution like this or living on the streets?"
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