Twelve police officers were hurt early on Tuesday morning when they were struck by pyrotechnics and glass bottles.
According to San Francisco Police, Mission Station officers were summoned to the junction of 24th and Harrison Streets at at 12.40 a.m. because there was a huge crowd and a fire.
Officers arrived on the scene and deemed the mob to be a “illegal assembly,” ordering them to disperse.
However, according to authorities, the mob turned violent at that time and started hurling glass bottles and lighting fireworks in the direction of the cops.
Twelve cops thus complained of ringing in their ears, and two of them also had minor burns from fireworks debris. According to authorities, none of the injuries were life-threatening.
Fireworks could be heard as footage from the location showed a sizable fire blazing in the center of the intersection at 24th and Harrison Streets. Although there didn’t seem to be one large group of individuals, there were dozens of people standing on the sidewalk at the moment.
Officers were finally able to disperse the throng and put out the fire before it did any damage, according to the San Francisco police department.
No arrests have been made in the melee, and police ask anyone with information to call the San Francisco Police Department tip-line at 1 (415) 575-4444. Callers may remain anonymous.
San Francisco police tweeted on Tuesday that 12 officers were injured while trying to clear a ‘hostile’ crowd in Mission Station
In the Bay Area, where citizens recently decided to remove their enlightened District Attorney last month, crime is on the rise.
Assaults in the city are up over 12 percent from last year, with 1,212 assaults registered so far this year, according to the most recent crime data for San Francisco.
In addition, rapes are up 3.7% from last year, and auto thefts are up 2.3%. Meanwhile, larceny theft is up a startling 18% from the previous year.
That rise in crime prompted voters to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin, as residents and political opponents accused him of not doing enough to keep citizens safe, and introducing policies that allowed repeat offenders to commit crimes without fear of incarceration.
Boudin was elected in 2019 promising to institute criminal justice reforms designed to keep low-level offenders from jail and spare juveniles from facing long prison terms.
He refused to seek the death penalty or try juveniles as adults, and his policies sought to push people accused of non-violent crimes into programs to address drug addiction and homelessness instead of giving them jail time.
His critics blamed those policies for an uptick in murders, shootings and property crimes, as well as an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans.
His defenders said the spike was a function of the pandemic and noted that crime is reverting to norms that existed beforehand. They contended the city’s swelling homeless population has distorted some residents’ perceptions of security.
Boudin’s office was only charging people with theft in less than half of all cases since taking office.
In comparison, his predecessor George Gascon made such charges in 62 percent of all cases in 2018 and 2019, according to city data.
Boudin has an even lower rate in petty crime.
Boudin has also convicted far less people of both crimes than Gascon, and has charged people with crimes in less than half percent of all reported cases, while Gascon has a charging rate of 54 percent.
Still, following his ouster, Boudin, 41, blamed billionaire Republicans and the city’s police force for his loss, asserting that citizens had been ‘exploited’ by them.
‘This is a Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country,’ he told The Guardian.
‘The playbook involves delegitimizing and fear-mongering and recalling. It’s a tactic being used by folks who are increasingly unable to prevail in elections when they put forward their views about public safety and justice.’
Boudin did concede that voters were understandably frustrated by the pandemic but thrust the blame on city officials that he said has failed to deliver on safety, housing, and equity, as murders and assaults continue to rise from last year – one of the worst years crime-wise the city had seen in decades.
He said: ‘We have two cities. We have two systems of justice. ‘
‘We have one for the wealthy and the well connected and a different one for everybody else.’
‘And that’s exactly what we are fighting to change.’
He added: ‘This was never about one vote count. It was never about one election night party. This is a movement, not a moment in history.’