Ex-San Francisco hearth commissioner who mentioned homeless man beat him is accused of initiating altercation with bear spray
The former San Francisco fire commissioner, who said a homeless man brutally attacked him with a metal pipe, has been accused of instigating the April 5 altercation.
Attorneys representing homeless man Garret Doty said video evidence showed that former San Francisco Fire Department Commissioner Don Carmignani was the attacker and that he doused Doty with bear spray. They also claimed that Carmignani may have been involved in other incidents involving the spraying of homeless people in the Cow Hollow and Marina District neighborhoods.
Carmignani’s attorney, Nick Colla, said his client was “repeatedly hit with a metal rod” by Doty as he retreated nearly two blocks from the original point of contact.
He also denied that Carmignani was involved in any of the other alleged incidents.
“It is unfortunate that the narrative has shifted to the victim’s alleged story while the focus is not at all on the defendant’s well-documented history of violence and harassing behavior,” Colla said in an emailed statement.
Doty was arrested April 5 and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and battery. San Francisco prosecutors said he was acting in self-defense and asked prosecutors to drop the charges.
He was being held in the San Francisco County Jail. A judge on Thursday ordered his release after failing to appear in court for a preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors said Carmignani could not testify in the case because he sustained injuries in the alleged assault. The hearing was postponed to May 23.
On Wednesday, prosecutors released two videos they received from prosecutors. The video shows a man “fitting the physical description of Carmignani” unprovokedly approaching homeless people, according to a press release from the Public Defender’s Office.
“Prosecutors released this evidence because they believed it was relevant to the circumstances surrounding Doty,” the press release said.
In video of the April 5 incident involving Doty, a man appears to be pulling a can out of his jacket pocket. Doty is not seen being sprayed or Carmignani being attacked with the whistle.
In the video, Doty can be seen running away before turning to face the man. In the video, Doty appears to walk away several times while the man follows him.
Doty, left, appears to be walking away as the man follows him. Office of the San Francisco Public Defender
Doty’s attorneys said Carmignani approached her client and sprayed him with bear spray.
“There was a fight between the two men. A third witness told police she heard Carmignani threaten to stab and kill Doty if he did not leave the area. Doty responded to Mr. Carmignani in self-defense,” the public defender’s office said.
The second video, dated November 6, 2021, shows a man spray-spraying a homeless man on Magnolia Street. The public defender’s office said the victim was asleep and the perpetrator took “additional measures to spray him intensely in the face.”
On November 6, 2021, a person in San Francisco appears to spray-spray a homeless man.Office of the San Francisco Public Defender
The public defender’s office charged Carmignani with being involved in seven other bear spray incidents, one of which was on November 11 in which the attacker unzipped the victim’s tent, sprayed bear spray inside and told the victim to “leave my town.” “. .”
In one incident on Jan. 6, the attacker spray-sprayed a man and a woman, took the woman’s wallet, cellphone and earrings, and threw her dog on the ground, the public defender’s office said in a press release.
Carmignani’s attorneys said he was not the man in the 2021 video and denied his involvement in the other incidents, NBC Bay Area reported.
They also released four videos of Doty pulling a long metal gun out of a trash can and attacking Carmignani. In videos obtained by NBC News, a man can be seen repeatedly brandishing a metal object before punching Carmignani twice. Another video shows the man armed with the metal object chasing Carmignani.
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Carmignani told San Francisco-based KPIX-TV on Tuesday that he has had nightmares of someone attacking him since the alleged beating.
“I’m lucky if I get two hours of sleep a night at all,” he said.
He said he had two head wounds and needed a plate placed in his broken jaw.
