Christiana Porter was slammed into a wall by a San Francisco police officer during a jaywalking stop last July. Nearly eight months later, she’s still afraid to leave the house alone.
“My fight-or-flight is always on 10,” Porter said. “My body is always in a defensive mode.”
She now relies on others, like her godfather Rickey Givens, to take her to the grocery store. Givens said he has noticed signs of “mental breakdown” in his goddaughter, who sometimes seems afraid of being watched and, at other times, afraid that her experience will be forgotten.
“From the outside looking in, it’s easy to say ‘move on,’” Givens added. “But you can’t move on.”
The waves of emotion Porter has felt since the incident peaked once more last week, when her lawyers filed a lawsuit arguing she had been illegally detained with an excessive amount of force. The San Francisco Standard first reported on the filing.
Afterward, “I thought I was going to be joyous, excited, clapping,” she said. “But it was actually like, ‘Oh, God, now it’s going to be a roller coaster.’”
Porter, a domestic violence survivor and single mother of five, was thrust into the public eye when video of the incident circulated.
On Aug. 10, 2024 Mission Local obtained footage of San Francisco Police Department officer Josh McFall driving up to Porter, who had just crossed an empty intersection. He gets out, grabs her, and slams her into a wall, then handcuffs and moves her into a police vehicle. Porter had just left Office Depot, where she was printing out forms related to an ongoing domestic violence case.
The District Attorney’s Office did not file charges against Porter. McFall and the two other officers who joined him, however, faced public scrutiny.
On Aug. 22, Porter filed a claim against the city for injuries that left her with a concussion and a separated shoulder. By early September, the Department of Police Accountability was investigating the incident, and community advocates were denouncing what they saw as a series of anti-Black incidents in San Francisco.
On Sep. 27, Porter’s claim was denied, an outcome Porter’s attorneys said was common. The next step was filing a lawsuit, which Porter’s lawyers ultimately did on March 3. They have not yet received a response.
The City Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lateef Gray, one of Porter’s lawyers, said he expected the police to deny the allegations of wrongdoing. “We see this in every case, no matter how egregious the behavior of the officer.”
Last June, San Francisco implemented a policy restricting the use of pretextual stops — stops of drivers for specific low-level infractions — as a means of investigating other criminal behavior. Porter’s lawyers have compared her detention for jaywalking, a decriminalized infraction, to these pretext stops.
“A badge doesn’t excuse you from complying with the law and with policy,” said Treva Stewart, another one of Porter’s lawyers. “You break the law, you’re going to get punished.”
Porter is conscious of the eyes on her case. She says she would like that attention to be on the police’s excessive use of force in communities of color, which isn’t always documented.
“I was the one who was fortunate enough for it to be captured on video by those bystanders,” she stressed.
Porter appeared outwardly strong as she sat just outside her downtown apartment on March 11, her all-white outfit highlighted by the sunshine hitting Union Square. She said she was focused on recovery, both physical and mental.
“A lot of people will look at me on the outside and think, ‘You’re dressed up, how is there anything wrong with you?’” Porter added. “So for me, it’s just breaking down the barriers of what an injured person looks like.”
Nobody deserves to be beaten on because of jaywalking under any circumstances.
SFPD needs oversight, not rubber stamps. This is one example.
Where, in the duty to serve and protect, is it suggested that officers can deliver a beat down to members of the public over very minor infractions, or the slightest provocation?
Only one of hundreds of cases (and examples) of use of excessive force and completely inappropriate actions by an SFPD officer. In 2016, the US Justice Department Office of Community Oriented Policing was called upon to investigate numerous incidents of SFPD officers involved in fatal officer shootings of suspects, in the use of excessive force on suspects (as in Porter’s case), in incidents of sending racist and homophobic texts and incidents of violence against the victims of sexual assault. Even worse, SFPD secretly used and mishandled rape test kit evidence and was sued by victims for this practice. San Franciscans demand independent citizen oversight, accountability and transparency from the SFPD. That is a primary function of the Police Commission and the reason why Max Carter Oberstone should never have been removed by Lurie.
If you see the name McFall , better start whipping out the phone camera cause it might just go viral.
Did you know he has a blog where he rails against SFPD policies, calls for using more force and disregarding police commission policy standards? You KNOW the lawyers involved are going to know about it. That’s going to play in court.
I hope she wins her lawsuit, I was sickened watching the video. I know holding an officer accountable for a crime is impossible, but can we at least not renew this guys contract?
This statement in your article is false at worst, misleading at best
“ He gets out, grabs her, and slams her into a wall, then handcuffs and moves her into a police vehicle.”
Nearly a full minute elapsed before he put hands in her. Only after she appears to try and go around him. She was lawfully detained and refused to cooperate and the thought she could just ignore a police officer and walk away. Society doesn’t work that way hun.
Actually it does, hun. SFPD policy is to deescalate, only use force when necessary, allow time and distance to obtain compliance, and the very “crime” (infraction) for jaywalking ONLY applies if there is vehicle traffic near enough to make an unsafe situation caused by the jaywalker – no traffic, no infraction at all, and they’re not ALLOWED by SFPD policy to use ‘safe’ jaywalking as predicate to stop anyone. The officer involved has a blog where he calls for more use of force and less adherence to SFPD commission policies. Yeah, you got this one wrong hun. She’ll get 2-3 million in the civil suit, and you’ll pay your share of it. We all will.
Gotta play it up for the lawsuit, what a joke…
Get your shoulder out of joint for jaywalking and then talk.
Boy o boy is she working this!!!
As she should, the cops get away with working so many so often, they currently can’t stop sidewalk sale because the sfpd were caught selling confiscated stolen merchandise in the Oakland coliseum flea market.
I am aggressively calling San Francisco police department to try to get this guy fired
Thank God for my camera phones, cops are finally getting exposed for there insanely illegal and deadly behavior. The police are out of control in this nation, they’re hoodlums.
It’s enough that the city will have to pay her taxpayer money that will come out of city services.
You don’t have to cheer her on.
Afraid to leave her house. Yeah, right.
All for the crime of Jaywalking! Shocking.
She deserves the restitution, because money talks in bureaucracy.
And he deserves to be held accountable. Point blank.
An armed man came up to her in public, in broad daylight, and slammed her against a wall for no reason. The assault left her with a concussion and a separated shoulder.
I’m pretty sure that would give me nightmares. And yes, it’d be scary to go outside in the city — what if the attacker does it again? Or one of his brethren?
Greg,
I’m assuming you never watched the video. There was nearly a full minute before he used physical force to restrain her. Only after it looks like she thinks she can ignore him and just walk away.
That’s still not SFPD policy to slam people against walls, especially for the non-crime of jaywalking when there’s no traffic around. Learn the policy and law before you profess it again. She’s about to win millions in court.
Wrong. Jaywalking is not a crime, it’s an infraction, and if there’s no traffic coming to create a safety hazard it’s not even that. You know nothing about the law. She did not resist and the claim that she did is you licking a boot.
Jaywalking is a crime. And cops can use force if a suspect is resisting, evading or being insubordinate.
You have to look at how this suspect reacted to the initial stop.
Yes, surely the key here is what she said and did in the time between being stopped for jaywalking and the alleged forcible restraint.
In the same situation I would have been cooperative, compliant and civil. Is it possible that instead she was evasive, verbal and insubordinate?
That isn’t cause to damage someone under SFPD policy, so maybe it’s a good thing you’ve never been and will never be a cop.
She was assaulted and her assaulter was not punished.
Why should she not be afraid?