Hundreds of protesters came to San Francisco City Hall Tuesday afternoon in support of hunger strikers calling for the ouster of The City’s police chief and interrupted a Board of Supervisors meeting to shout their demands.
Five people dubbed the #Frisco5 have refrained from eating for 13 days in protest of recent police killings in San Francisco and are calling for Mayor Ed Lee to fire police Chief Greg Suhr.
Hundreds of their supporters marched from the Mission Police Station to City Hall this afternoon, pushing the five hunger strikers in wheelchairs, and then gathered in Civic Center Plaza at about 2:30 p.m. while chanting “Fire Chief Suhr!”
The protesters then entered City Hall and stood outside the door to the mayor’s office, where they were told by a staffer that Lee was not inside. Around the same time, Lee posted a photo on Twitter from a meeting with merchants in the city’s Bayview District in support of small businesses.
Some of the protesters then went into the Board of Supervisors chambers and called for the supervisors to make the mayor fire Suhr.
One protestor said at the meeting:
“Now is the time to take action. People are dying literally across the hall, they’re withering away. Are you ready to do something?”
Board president London Breed then called for a recess of the meeting while chanting continued.
The protesters hoped to meet with the mayor following recent fatal shootings by police officers in San Francisco, including of Mario Woods by several officers in the Bayview District in December. Bystanders captured that shooting on video and it circulated widely on social media.
“Technology is taking over and we’re tired of seeing it on video,” said Felia Sala, a Vallejo resident attending today’s protest.
Jose Hernandez, a Daly City resident also at the protest, questioned why police didn’t use crisis negotiators in cases like Woods’ before opening fire and said the shootings are an example of injustice in the city.
Hernandez said:
“San Francisco is the most beautiful city aesthetically, but not in a social or economic way.”
The march from the Mission District to City Hall blocked traffic on many major thoroughfares in The City Tuesday afternoon, including Mission Street, Market Street and Van Ness Avenue.
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