Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin went above and beyond in his civic duties Thursday morning. As he drove toward City Hall along Van Ness Avenue, he spotted what appeared to be a homeless man being beaten and robbed.
Acting fast, Peskin called 911 at 11:02 a.m., he told The Standard in a phone call, and began following the suspect in his car, remaining on the line for eight minutes.
“At which point, I was told he had been apprehended, and I drove back around and found him and identified him, and he is now under arrest,” Peskin said.
Peskin said the victim looked as if he was in his 60s and “maybe homeless.”
“[The] suspect looked like a maybe late-20s caucasian male with a beard — about 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8,” he said. “He had a big stick in his hand, two long objects in his hands which he was beating the victim [with.] I witnessed the victim hand what appeared to be — but can’t positively say — looked like a wallet.”
Peskin’s longtime political consultant, Jim Stearns, wasted no time seizing the opportunity to promote the mayoral candidate’s good deed for the day.
“He not only swims from Alcatraz, he single-handedly apprehends dangerous criminals. I mean, of course, he should be mayor,” he told The Standard by phone.
Juewels Woods, a manager at the Burger King on Van Ness Avenue, said she witnessed the assault and also called the police. She said one man hit another with a metal pipe and then ran off with some of his belongings.
“All of a sudden he slammed him in the eye,” Woods said. “Then he started screaming, and he robbed him.”
Gummy bears, empty packets of swisher sweets and a few items of clothing were the only remnants of the earlier assault, according to a nearby safety ambassador who declined to give their name as they are not authorized to speak to the press.
The San Francisco Police Department confirmed the incident. It said Daniel Roman Otero Holdsworth, 27, was arrested on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and mayhem, which is the act of unlawfully or maliciously attacking another person in a way that causes disfigurement or disability.
At 12:56 p.m., Peskin tweeted, “Hope the victim is okay- my heart sincerely goes out to them. Good work by @SF_emergency @SFPDNorthern truly.”
Footage posted online after the incident shows a man suffering from facial wounds outside the Burger King.