Neighbors are accusing a human-controlled loudspeaker security system at a residential building at 26th and Bartlett of “racial profiling” people who linger too long in front of its door. Anytime a poor-looking black or brown person stands in front of the building, a loudspeaker sounds and threatens to call the police, according to neighbors.
“Please be advised to the individual in the hoodie and the hat — you have been warned at this time, please don’t loiter in front of the building … police have been called and are en route to your location — you are now considered trespassing.”
That’s what a male voice told a Mission Local reporter through a loudspeaker on Wednesday when this reporter, whose skin is brown, stood in front of the building on the public sidewalk while wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a billed cap. After a mere minute, it gave him a warning, and after five, it said police were on their way.
By contrast, a Mission Local editor — middle-aged, white, wearing a sweater and reading a newspaper — went unhassled as he stood for 15 minutes in front of the building.
Responding to a social media post, Amanda Moran, who said she and her family have owned a unit in the building at 555 Bartlett since 2010, said the building’s tenant “board” installed the system to deter homeless people.
“What happened is that so many people were camping and peeing there that the cement in that part of the Walgreens garage got soaked with urine and it’s seeping into the walls and up into the apartments upstairs,” Moran wrote. “We thought this was a good solution, but our board is now aware of neighbors’ concerns — it definitely is TOO Loud!”
It’s unclear who actually runs the loudspeaker security system. Moran did not respond to a message from Mission Local.
It’s also unclear if the police actually respond as the loudspeaker threatens. This reporter waited around 10 minutes, and no police came. Kristin Hogan, a spokeswoman with the Department of Emergency Management, which fields non-emergency calls, said dispatchers determine the priority of the call depending on the information conveyed to them from the call.
Likewise, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Officer Adam Lobsinger said the police department responds according to the immediacy and severity of a reported crime.
“When the San Francisco Police Department receives a call for service our response is based on several factors including, but not limited to, threats to life, property and severity of a call,” he wrote in an email.
Residents in the surrounding area say the loudspeaker security system, which has a camera mounted next to it, on the south side of the street on 26th near Bartlett, sounds at all hours — oftentimes in the middle of the night, waking up the neighbors. But observations that it profiles people based on their appearance is the biggest concern.
“I feel it targets and criminalizes low-income people and immigrants [or] … if you look like a Mission homie on a bike,” said Nancy Charraga, who lives across the street from the building, and has frequently heard the loudspeaker over the last year.
She posted about it on Facebook on Monday, describing the system as the “racially profiling speaker announcements at all hours.”
Charraga wondered what criteria tenants of the building gave to the security company to act upon, in terms of the kinds of people they don’t want to see in front of their building. She said she’s seen people in suits, passing out real estate flyers, without being disturbed.
Charraga wants to see the loudspeaker security system turned off. “It doesn’t fit in with the character of the neighborhood,” she said. “We have to share the street with the diversity of the community.”
Heather Steiny, one of Charraga’s neighbors, agreed. “We’re concerned it’s racial profiling,” Steiny said.
Steiny said she began to notice the system last fall, and it has since woken her up at all hours of the night, each time telling people that appear to be low-income to “move on” and that “we’ll dispatch the police.”
Steiny said the system’s noise level is only one of the issues, and simply turning it down won’t solve much.
Likewise, Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, the executive director of CARECEN SF, which advocates for Latino and immigrant rights, said she saw a brown person be deterred from the building sometime last year.
“It kind of tripped me out because I had never seen or heard that,” she said. “And it kept going off and the person walked away.”
“It feels like a very impersonal way to approach community,” she added.
Charraga, who said she’s meeting with the building’s tenants on Thursday, said if the situation does not change, the community is poised to push back. “I’m hoping they’ll be diplomatic about it,” Charraga said. “Or else the community is ready to mobilize.”
Update, Jan. 16:
I heard about this and visited the site multiple times to confirm myself. My experience tracks @EskSF. I went in a hoodie and separately in a cardigan and scarf. I leaned on the wall and lay on the sidewalk. Nobody said anything. https://t.co/YmtfM8oavZ
— Nato Green (@natogreen) January 16, 2020
Joe Eskenazi contributed reporting to this story.
San Francisco is a very elitist and classist place. Women who aren’t slender don’t get jobs in this town. If you’re svelt and attractive , the city is yours no matter what you race or socio-economics.
This is awful for the people being profiled, but also, if I was paying rent and woken up multiple times a night by these announcements, I’d be screaming bloody murder. Can we walk and chew gum? People shouldn’t be harassed AND the rent is too damn high for things like loudness in the middle of the night. How about all the tenants go on a sleep-preserving rent strike until this foolishness is put to bed, literally?
This is more classism than racism, which is just as gross and disgusting.
I feel like this basic fact in the reporting was overlooked, to the article’s detriment.
Maybe a camera should be installed to determine what the persons peeing on the property look like.
I’m not sure the authorities are going to put out an APB on that footage.
Although I sympathize with the folks that suffer worse treatment than their white counterparts, I wish that more energy was devoted to helping the disadvantaged overcome and escape the circumstances that leave them vulnerable to unfavorable treatment in the first place (i.e. harassment by authority figures, whether they’re police officers or a security guard on a microphone.)
On a related note, as a middle-aged Caucasian male, I have little to fear from authority. But, I’m often puzzled that people who know they’re apt to draw suspicion and mistreatment from police officers, taunt and disrespect them (in ways that I can’t even fathom) and wonder why they’re treated differently. I think the irreverence towards authority figures only compounds the mistreatment that might result from any conscious or subconscious racism. Painfully, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I
Lived a block from there for 20 years.
I’m gonna grab a bullhorn and stand in front of the building on a Saturday. Each time someone goes in or out I’m going to announce that they are ugly and poorly dressed – and that the fashion police have been called.
Julian,
I managed buildings in SF for years and this strategy
ignores one important reality.
Which is, your building cannot move.
If you rile up a really bad person, they and their
friends can come back and screw with the property
when you’re asleep or away.
For years.
I always just got a good rep with the transients by
bribing them with a free lighter or shared joint.
And .. always hose down the front of your building close to
7am (that used to be legal) …
Go Niners!
h.
what a great idea….keep movin bud, nothing worth peeing over here.
When government doesn’t do it’s job, citizens take matters in to their own hands and unintended consequences happen.
Agree with Chrisy, dress them alike if you want to truly judge if it’s racial profiling. It may just be profiling the clothes that people choose to wear.
“By contrast, a Mission Local editor — middle-aged, white, wearing a sweater and reading a newspaper — went unhassled as he stood for 15 minutes in front of the building.”
-Not the welcome for brown skin, jeans and a sweatshirt.
They thinks its dirty now, try living on that block 20 years ago…
I rented on that corridor for 10 months. I Am not convinced the loud speaker is the savior but there is a tremendous amount of crime and drug activity from folks camped out on the sidewalk. I watched one of the neighbors get assaulted with a street sign, a homeless man brandish a rifle and spent an entire afternoon from my living room watch a man in a Jeep Cherokee hand out drugs to people who seemed like the walking dead. The city needs to put street lights on that corridor to start making a difference. Too many people hiding in the bushes and shadows getting away with shady business. A loud speaker doesn’t make a difference imo. I called 311 daily multiple times a day and no one ever showed up until the gun situation with 5+ homeless guys. Very scary place to be.
The SFPD response time for a poor person lingering on the sidewalk is gonna be hours, assuming they ever come at all. So the speaker is an empty threat and i’m personally gonna make a point of dropping a fat stinky deuce on the front door step of this building every time i walk by it now. These entitled interlopers don’t get to tell residents of a neighborhood how they get to behave or where they can & can’t stand.
You’ll have to get in line, Hugh. There are already turds up and down that block.
This is common in San Francisco, I used to reside at Folsom Dore Apartments, and before TNDC decided to place a desk clerk in that property, you had dope dealers and hookers standing in front of the complex, and the people that needed their services were living in the complex under special housing care agencies for their habits, it became so bad that these people loitering outside started taking over the build to the point where it wasn’t safe for anyone walking around minding their own business. You even had those nasty looking hookers knocking on random residents doors offering their time. This happened especially the first of the month when the those under the special housing care agencies received their SSI checks. TNDC ended up having to regulate things through a desk clerk. Racial profiling is one thing, but if that’s what the property owners fear, then place a desk clerk to regulate the complex and sign guess in an out. Their is a reason for everything, this article seems to blame the property, but we also need to look as to why it was in place to begin with. Folsom Dore Apartments never had or needed a desk clerk until people from the streets made it unsafe for residents . Geneva Towers decades ago was an example of what can go wrong if rules are not set in place for low income environments that house some mentally ill or people housed under special circumstances due to addictions. Boundaries have to be set, where people constantly step over it, and this might be the case here depending on the buildings history.
COMMENT In the last few years before it was torn down, Geneva Towers was policed like you wouldn’t believe. Is it even legal to attempt to drive someone off public property unless they treat it as their own private space? Public housing commonly does not generate enough income from tenants to maintain the property in a safe condition, which some feel leads to the sort of problems the towers experienced. In sum, the presence of non-residents is not the issue, what they do while they are there is.
Outrageous! If this is not stopped immediately, the community should gather en masse in front of the building and loudly demand an end to this.
Mentions of racial profiling – 7. Clearly a stupid idea.
Mentions of frequent urination and curing that problem – 1. It’s almost as if we take that as a law of nature.
Uh YEAH because it IS a law of nature. What, have you discovered a miraculous way to live life indefinitely without having to pee?
Not everyone has access to a toilet. Especially since NIMBY clowns like you refuse poor people of color access to restrooms in businesses and other public places because you’re white supremacist classist bourgeoisie interlopers who move into low income communities despite the fact that you obviously hate poor people.
Do you have any idea how entitled and privledged you sound? Get an education.
On my way home this evening I walked by numerous Latino-owned stores and restaurants with “Restrooms for customers only’ and “No Public Restrooms” signs in the window. In addition, a lot of the homeless people I passed were white men. Nimby kind of applies on some level but could you explain the racist and classist characterization to me? I haven’t met many Latino business owners who invite homeless folks into their restaurants to have a glass of water and hang out.
I don’t care how bad you have to pee – it’s never ok to pee on someone’s porch. Don’t blame other people and harm them for your own problems.
COMMENT I agree with your critique, however Cesar does bring up a point which has not been thoroughly explored. The 555 person says: “What happened is that so many people were camping and peeing there that the cement in that part of the Walgreens garage got soaked with urine and it’s seeping into the walls and up into the apartments upstairs.” I am not a neighbor but have walked by frequently over the years and have never noticed a “so many people” camping or peeing. The corner is well-known as a hangout for laborers waiting to get picked up for work so maybe that’s who’s peeing. But so much it is getting into the walls and apartments in 555? That’s some kind of industrial strength pee! Or is there something about the walls of 555 which absorb and transport urine upward, even though you would expect urine, like water, to seep and soak downward. Maybe the materials used at 555 should be checked out.
There were encampments along that wall for a while before this version of a security system was set up. Walgreens closed that parking gate because the drugstore didn’t want that corner of the structure to continue as a public toilet. As for the urine, I suspect the smell transported upward, rather than the liquid.
Why not dress them alike if you want to test how they handle different skin tones?
Because there’s a whole lot more to racial profiling and classism than skintone. You take two men of identical caramel complexion and dress one in baggy jeans, air jordans, a sports jersey and a rope chain while you dress the other like a 9 to 5 suitdummy and guess which one is gonna get the police called on him. It’s embarassing that you need this explained to you.
Kenshin, read what you just wrote. Based on the clothing the person chooses to wear is what determines whether the police get called. This is what YOU just said. In your example, skin tone means nothing and the CHOICE of clothing means everything. If you want to be treated differently, then you need to start making different choices in the way you present yourself.
A good lesson to teach your children if you want them to succeed in society when they are older. The choices we make determine our future.
So they have to dress stereotypically “white” not to be discriminated against? Should they not wear “ethnic” hairstyles either? Check your privilege.
Get a grip, sir.
This wasn’t a job interview. It’s not illegal to stand on the public sidewalk, whether you’re wearing a hoodie or a tuxedo.
Do better.
JE
Joe, my comment was directed at Kenshin who stated the clothes determined the racial profiling and not the color of their skin. It was specific to her retort, not an overall comment on whether people should be allowed to be somewhere.
Next time you do your test, switch clothing and see if it still profiles the “brown” person. If so, then you can determine it’s racial profiling. My grief is with the science behind the test.
In reading my comment back, maybe it was a little harsh.
John —
In retrospect, I wish I’d behaved a bit worse to test things. The outfit point is fine, but the fact Julian was shooed off within a minute is pretty telling.
Also, here’s this:
https://twitter.com/natogreen/status/1217862939685748737
JE