San Francisco has moved one step closer to barring private guards from drawing firearms to protect property, after the Board of Supervisors approved a measure to amend the police code on Tuesday.
The ordinance, proposed by Supervisor Dean Preston, came in response to the killing of 24-year-old Banko Brown in April by a Walgreens security guard during an altercation over an alleged petty theft. The Board approved the measure without any discussion or objection.
“I am grateful that the Board has taken this important step forward in ensuring that the people of San Francisco will be placed above property,” Preston said in a statement. “We should be doing everything in our power to prevent something like the killing of Banko Brown from happening again.”
Last month, Preston’s ordinance was approved by three moderate members of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee. Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Matt Dorsey, and Joel Engardio strongly supported the proposal, noting that even San Francisco police are held to stricter standards, and agreeing that private security guards need more oversight.
In the April incident that sparked this ordinance, the security guard tussled with Brown, a transgender man, and threw him onto the floor. As Brown got up and backed out of the store’s doors, the guard shot him once in the chest. The shooting is under review by California Attorney General Rob Bonta; DA Brooke Jenkins declined to prosecute.
After last month’s meeting, Preston faced pushback from none other than Elon Musk, who responded to a Mission Local tweet about the ordinance’s passage and called for Preston’s imprisonment. The moderate supervisors who also supported the ordinance, however, drew no such condemnation.
Currently, San Francisco’s police code allows for security guards to unholster their weapons not only in response to public safety threats, but also in defense of property. Shortly before Brown’s killing, Walgreens had instructed its guards to respond to shoplifting more aggressively.
But California regulations are more strict: The firearms training manual for the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services allows guards to remove their weapons from their holster only when there is an “imminent danger to life.”
And San Francisco’s police use-of-force policy is similarly less permissive. Officers may draw their firearms “when there are objectively reasonable facts with substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily injury.”
“The law has always placed a higher value upon human safety than upon mere property,” said Geoffrea Morris, the founder of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence, in a statement. “The passage of today’s legislation just reaffirms that Banko Brown’s life was greater than any alleged property he was accused of stealing.”
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Are they going to bar thieves from unholstering guns too? Or is almost every single store in San Francisco going to close?
News flash: the public is already barred from unholstering guns in stores.
Honest question: Why don’t security guards carry tasers rather than guns? Seems a lot more appropriate when dealing with property crime — if the thief won’t cooperate, tase them, zip tie them, and wait for police to arrive. In the Banko case, Banko fought with, threatened, and then spit on the guard — getting shot doesn’t seem like an appropriate response, but getting tased seems reasonable.
Tasers are not fool proof. Pretty sure even sfpd doesn’t use them right now. Gonna guess they’d run out of darts if they authorized pvt security to use them in defense of property. The PS folks are free to draw down on anyone threatening them or someone else. They just need to be sure a DA will agree that a threat existed. No one should be drawing their pistol to stop a theft. That’s what Jujutzu is for.
Absolutely ridiculous. SF continues to put criminals above residents and businesses. Dean Preston strikes again.
You want guards who are certified to carry weapons, who can’t protect others and themselves. Wow! Bad guys will use whatever means against you, which includes sticks, knives, pepper spray, and guns. Bad guys win, good people lose, and more businesses will go away. Re-active city policies that defy logic. Some SF BOS need to go!