Three San Francisco supervisors received a threatening letter at their homes on Tuesday, and two more filed police reports after Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator and a heavy campaign donor to efforts to oust progressive politicians, posted online that seven supervisors should die a slow death.
Tan wrote “Die slow motherfuckers” in reference to Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Connie Chan, Myrna Melgar, Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen, Dean Preston and Ahsha Safaí in a late-night rant Saturday. During his online tirade, Tan posted photos of his private liquor stash, and indicated to a fellow Twitter user that he was inebriated.
The “die slow motherfucker” line was a reference to a Tupac Shakur song, and Tan later apologized. That 1996 song, “Hit ‘Em Up,” escalated the simmering East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry into a lethal feud; Shakur was shot and killed three months after its release.
The named supervisors did not take the incident lightly: Peskin and Chan filed police reports on Tuesday, and Melgar and Safaí pledged to do the same. Peskin, Preston and Melgar all received letters to their homes, citing Tan’s diatribe and wishing death upon them and their families.
When asked if she felt personally threatened by Tan’s behavior, Chan responded, “Seeing what my colleague[s] received in the mail? Yes, absolutely. I have a 10-year-old. I do not tell people where my child attends school.”
The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the hate mail sent to Preston and the police reports filed by Chan and Peskin. Peskin, at 8:40 p.m., confirmed to Mission Local that he, too, received a threatening letter at his home; on Wednesday morning, Melgar said she received one as well. The letters were emblazoned with a smiling portrait of Tan.
“Garry Tan is right!” the letter sent to Peskin, Preston, Melgar and, perhaps, others read. “I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones.”
Preston, in particular, has drawn Tan’s venom: Preston is the lone democratic socialist on the Board of Supervisors, an odious position to Tan, and Tan has donated $5,000 to Preston’s opponent and pledged another $50,000 to the effort to unseat him.
Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”
The board’s five Jewish members — Peskin, Ronen, Melgar, Preston and Rafael Mandelman — received antisemitic postcards in October at their homes. Peskin said multiple supervisors have received as many as four more antisemitic letters or postcards since then.
He noted that a similar disclaimer disavowing any threats was on one or more of the disturbing communiques he and others received earlier. “This letter was sent to educate public servants without malicious intent,” reads a bigoted, antisemitic note received last year by Ronen and other supervisors.
Chan says she received a letter on Dec. 27 at her home accusing her of “white genocide.” Chan, who is Chinese, is married to a white man and has a mixed-race child. Ronen received the same letter on the same day.
While Chan first thought to “brush off” Tan’s recent comments, she says she was initially unaware of how tied in he is politically. She then learned that Tan has hosted numerous moderate supervisor candidates at his home, including her major challenger, Marjan Philhour.
Chan, in her police report, noted that she had filed a prior report last year against Philhour’s staffer, Forrest Liu, whom she accuses of twice physically threatening her — publicly and in person.
After realizing the association of Tan to Philhour and Liu, she said “it then dawned on me that these unhinged individuals who have wished me death online, as well as physically threatened me, are connected; it became alarming to me that the threats are potentially violent and imminent.”
Liu did not respond to requests for comment.
Tan has, indeed, hosted San Francisco moderate political figures at his Mission District home, including District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Philhour and District 9 candidate Trevor Chandler.
Philhour and Chandler both criticized their backer, Tan, in light of his comments.
“Threats to one’s life or safety have no place in political discourse,” Philhour said.
“It is never okay to advocate violence, be it seriously or in jest,” said Chandler.
Jenkins did not respond to requests for comment.
Peskin asked the City Attorney’s Office today to look into requiring public disclosures from recipients of political donations from “purveyors of hate and violence.”
“When individuals in our society, especially, and most concerning, those with money,
power and influence, call for public servants to be tortured or killed, it is crossing a bright line — and must not be condoned by society,” Peskin said today in Board chambers. “To ignore it is dangerous, and a disservice to democracy.”
But tying this potential legislation to the message Tan communicated to his 408,000 Twitter followers would appear to be a serious legal challenge: Half a dozen lawyers and judges told Mission Local that, however ill-advised, Tan’s comments do not rise to the legal definition of a death threat.
Under Penal Code 422, a person making a criminal threat must harbor “specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat … ”
“It is offensive, but it is speech protected by the First Amendment,” said Berkeley School of Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It does not meet the standard for incitement.”
Tan is a well-heeled donor for San Francisco’s moderate causes and candidates. He sits on the board of Grow SF, a political pressure group favoring moderate causes and candidates and targeting progressives. Tan gave more than $100,000 to the 2022 campaign to recall then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin. He gave at least $20,000 to the 2021 school board recall, too.
Tan could not be reached for comment. Neither Y Combinator nor Grow SF immediately responded to requests for comment.
An earlier version of this story noted that the disclaimer found on the threatening letters was identical to one received by supervisors last year. However, the disclaimers were merely similar, not identical.
Thank you for the coverage. That this is the person funding certain candidates is horrifying. Although the label “moderate” should be questioned here.
Here is my take on it. Its not as bad as what everyone makes it out to be.
https://thiscrowd.com/y-combinator-president-garry-tans-tupac/
Garry Tan has crossed a clear and bright line. Threatening democratically elected public servants and their families is BEYOND. He is unhinged. Toxic. Inciting people to violence with death threatS and by fanning the flames of fear and loathing is despicable. Tan is a coward. He must be held accountable for his actions. These are democratically elected public servants. Garry Tan would never have the courage to be accountable to the public and the people of San Francisco.
As a moderate San Franciscan voter who often disagrees with the progressive side of SF politics, I am in strong agreement with those calling on Mission Local to stop using the “moderate” label in reference to Garry Tan.
There was nothing moderate nor normal about his abhorrent behavior. Our city has a lot of problems, but nothing that warrants the hateful toxicity from the Very Online Right. These people are more interested in themselves and their egos than actually fixing SF.
JB-
You demostrate exactly why “moderate” shouldn’t be used to describe poltical orientation. You’re using “moderate” to refer to a psychological state (“abhorrent behavior”); Joe is using the conventional (yet spurious) poltical framing that, in presenting a mythical center as “moderate,” implicitly posits left-of-center poltics as immoderate politically, and therefore by association, immoderate psychologically.
Politically orientation isn’t accurately modeled on a smooth, linear continuum from left to right. Where does a conservative populist fit? Or a liberal warmonger? A much better model is a Cartesian paradigm, with economic equality/inequality plotted left to right on the x axis, and authoritarism and anarchy (or libertarianism, is you prefer) plotted top to bottom on the y axis. Which quadrant would you be in?
Joe: Please be a mench and stop using the word “moderate” when describing poltical orientation!
With this most recent gaffe, maybe now it’s time to take a serious closer look at the morally corrupt San Francisco Standard for the megaphone it’s given to Tan by storyteller and billionaire owner Michael Moritz and SF Standard CEO Griffin Gaffney–boosting him up in familiar cabal ways with political propaganda posing as news, all while hiding their close and financial association with him, even when given opportunity to own their secret activities: Tan, Moritz and Gaffney all in bed together, manipulating SF readers and voters like puppeteers under the guise of “reporting the news.”
Precisely! Thank you.
And………..the targeting of Jewish electeds is despicable.
At least if your Jewish you can get elected. How many Muslims have been on the BoS? Arabs? And the real political kiss of death: to be Arab and Muslim.
Rashida Tlaib is the only Islamic Arab to ever serve in the House or Senate, and they censured her over protected speech. A disgrace.
Tan acts and talks like Trump but he and the politicians he is buying are still considered “moderate.”
GrowTogehterSF and other law and order “think tanks”/political (re)action groups want to excuse his hostility because he was drunk, but much of the vitriol Tan has been spewing has come during what I assume were sober moments.
The silence is deafening. Not a word from Supervisors Mandelman, Dorsey, Stefani and Engardio. What if they or their families and children were targeted in this way? What if they received hate mail with death threats delivered to their home addresses as the supervisors targeted by Tan have? This is incredibly disturbing and dangerous.
DA Jenkins should recuse herself and her office from investigation and prosecution. The California Attorney General should step in. All candidates and officials who have received money from Tan should immediately return it.
This is San Francisco, not the twisted, violent, corrupt world of TFG and his thugs. This must end.
There won’t be any investigation or prosecution because it is not illegal to loudly wish death on public servants or anyone else.
I think our recourse here is to vote out Brooke Jenkins and every other horrible politician who associates with this fascist creep.
Someone sent threatening letters. Someone is making multiple threats. Maybe not Tan, but inspired by him. Garry Tan may not be guilty of a crime, but until there is a complete investigation, we don’t know if crimes have been committed. We don’t know if a credible threat of death or injury has been made. What I am suggesting is that because the letters were clearly inspired by Tan, who is a big supporter of Jenkins, she and her office should recuse themselves from any investigation and possible prosecution in order to avoid the possibility of conflict of interest or appearance of conflict of interest.
Yes! Tan and his rich Libertarian tech bro friends are a minority here. The rest of us can vote in large numbers and show them how little power they actually have!
Why hasn’t Y Combinator fired Tan? Or is it that maybe they support Tan’s threats?
Why has not GrowSF fired Tan and returned all of his donations? Or is it that maybe they support Tan’s threats?
Why haven’t politicians aggressively denounced Tan and return any direct or indirect donations they have received from him? Or is it that maybe they support Tan’s threats?
The use of the term “moderate” to refer to Tan is normalizing efforts to subvert democracy. The right-wing has used recalls to undermine the will of the voters and Tan supported both the DA and School Board recalls. I really hope that Barros and Eskenazi will reconsider their use of this term when describing Tan and others of his ilk.
No worries, he’ll be going into rehab in 3 … 2 … 1……….
Especially given our city’s history of political violence and assassinations, this is unacceptable behavior from a public figure. I hope Y Combinator fires him appropriately.
I call ‘discrimination’,
I’ve been saying the same kinds of things about Public figures for years and no one will print it.
In fact, I’m exchanging ‘Sailor’ talk with my Missouri family on Niners vs Chiefs !!
Katier Porter for Senat !!
(is that obscene ?)
lol
I fully agree with dropping the term moderate. Gary Tan and his ilk are corporate Democrats who are firmly in the “Citizen’s United” camp where money is free speech. There’s way too much money in SF politics now. Being filthy rich should not be requisite for exercising political power.
I smell a play to try tank Tan. Not that he didn’t deserve it, if he isn’t 86ed already.
I bet Tan pulls the weak “I was only joking” excuse. I hope he doesn’t get away with it.
What does Tan’s company do exactly? Is it in connection to Elon’s new company of drilling holes in the heads of animals and humans, in order to create Frankensteins or the “Monkey Brains” tech radiation company? Or the tech bro who got stabbed under the bridge recently? Tan looks scarily similar to my ex- husband and tech bro, with last name “Han”, who also apparently has reason to get rid of me. Actually it could be him, since these bros are very clever about maintaining identical clone looks and even changing their names around and/or plastic surgery, etc.
I have become increasingly aware that there appears to be some kind of anti-Semitic hate group working behind the scenes (and behind the walls) to bring me down, possibly to destroy the evidence which I represent, and the fact that I am a poor progressive marginalized middle-aged educated Jewish female that has been speaking out loudly for the 15 years that I’ve been in the city. In other words, I appear to be the Uber enemy of this gang of tech bros..
I’m afraid they may be poisoning us with toxic chemicals, such as fentanyl, using their traffic trafficking gang slaves.🙏🕊️🌛💜💖🐉🤔🏵️🐲🐞🧧🌝🐥🌆🏙️✌️
I don’t know. Starting to feel like exaggeration and political payback. Peskin even suggesting that some SF government body should decide which individuals are and are not “purveyors of hate and violence” is the stupidest shit I’ve heard all day. And Chan put herself in the position of having her own quip turned on her.
Tupac was 99.99% shot by a LA Crips set. Hit Em Up had nothing to do with it.
Why defend and normalize explicit threats of violence?
Peskin yesterday referred to himself as a “champion of free speech,” and in his literal next breath referred to Tan’s post as ‘incitement to violence.’ Make no mistake, that is legal jargon and he wants Tan arrested.
And if Chan wants to protect her kid, then don’t bring your kid into it (note, that detail mostly disappeared). What she wants is to kneecap her political nemesis.
Hello RL E…read up on what a “true threat” is and no it’s not protected speech: https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/what-constitutes-a-true-threat/
It’s “political hyperbole” as decided in Watts v. US, 1969. Erwin Chemerinsky – quoted in this article – is one of the foremost authorities on free speech in the entire nation.
Lots of us want Tan arrested.