SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- A San Francisco art gallery owner who was recorded on video spraying a homeless woman with a hose outside his business last week has been charged with misdemeanor battery, the city’s district attorney said.

The video, made by a bystander Jan. 9, shows a man identified by police as Shannon Collier Gwin, 71, who runs the Foster-Gwin Gallery in the city’s Financial District, leaning against a railing with his legs crossed at the ankle.

Holding the nozzle in his right hand and supporting a length of the hose with his left, he aims a steady stream of water at the woman, who is sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by her belongings.

“Move, move, move,” the man says after he stops spraying. “OK? You gonna move?” he adds, pointing down the sidewalk.

Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, said Wednesday that her office had issued an arrest warrant for Gwin based on evidence from an investigation by the San Francisco Police Department. She said he was charged with misdemeanor battery “for the alleged intentional and unlawful spraying of water on and around a woman experiencing homelessness.”

“The alleged battery of an unhoused member of our community is completely unacceptable,” she said in a statement on Twitter. “Mr. Gwin will face appropriate consequences for his actions.”

She added that vandalism that took place at the gallery shortly after the episode was “completely unacceptable and must stop — two wrongs do not make a right.”

Gwin was arrested Wednesday and booked in the San Francisco County Jail on a battery charge, police said. He could not be reached Thursday, and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

The video, which lasts for about 14 seconds, was shared widely on social media, highlighting the city’s surging homeless population and the backlash against those who live on the streets, including from some business owners.

The San Francisco Police Department said Thursday that officers were called to the gallery, on Montgomery Street, about noon Jan. 9 to investigate a possible assault. They interviewed Gwin and the “adult female victim,” who the department said “declined further police action.” The department said crisis services were offered to the woman, whom it did not identify.




The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the homeless woman, whom nonprofit workers knew only as “Q,” was receiving treatment in a hospital two days after the episode, according to Aaron Peskin, president of the city’s board of supervisors.

The Rev. Amos C. Brown Sr., president of the NAACP’s San Francisco branch, said in an interview Thursday that he had spoken with Gwin, who he said “admitted he was wrong.”

Brown added that Gwin, who is white, told him he had previously called authorities and officials requesting services for the homeless woman, who is Black.

“This city that has failed to have a comprehensive responsible policy and practice dealing with homelessness is just as guilty,” Brown said.

Gwin struck a defiant tone in an interview with ABC7 shortly after the episode, saying that he found it “hard to apologize when we have had no help with this situation.” After a meeting of city and religious leaders Sunday night, Gwin said in a message that he read to the station that he was “deeply apologetic.”

Neighbors told the television station that they were familiar with the woman and had heard her scream at night. “She needs help,” one woman told the news station.

In posts before Jan. 9 on its Facebook page, Foster-Gwin Gallery advertised its upcoming shows and said it would be closing Jan. 4 because of the heavy storms in California. Threaded throughout some of the posts were recent comments from people condemning Gwin’s actions.

Gwin told The New York Times in 2008 that he had been in the business for 26 years at that point. The article described his decision to remodel his gallery and display fewer pieces there, and it highlighted an upcoming sale by Sotheby’s of 200 antiques, mostly 17th- and 18th-century Italian furniture.

This week, local news stations showed footage of the door to Gwin’s gallery boarded up. He had sprayed the woman outside a neighboring business, the Barbarossa Lounge on Montgomery Street. As the video circulated on social media, the lounge published a statement on social media and on its website saying it was not associated with what it called Gwin’s “inhumane actions.”

“We are extremely disappointed in this individual’s behavior and in no way support such actions,” it said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.