The Hunger Strike That Changed SFPD

The police shooting of Alex Nieto in 2014 sent shockwaves through San Francisco, where tensions between communities of color and SFPD had already been brewing for decades. Nieto, born and raised in the city, had been eating chips in a park when a newcomer to his neighborhood found him suspicious and made the 911 call that ended his life. Author Rebecca Solnit called it “death by gentrification.” 

Rapper Equipto was one of the activists who sprung into action following Nieto’s death, joining a growing national movement against police brutality that had peroclated since the deaths of Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin. In addition to police violence, San Francisco’s black and brown communities felt squeezed by evictions and pro-tech policies, and Equipto spent months imagining what he would tell Mayor Ed Lee if he ever got the chance to talk to him. 

Then, one evening in October 2015, Equipto ran into Lee at a restaurant.

“You’re a disgrace to Asians,” Equipto, whose real name is Ilyich Sato, called after Lee. “The people that built this city, you’re getting all of them all kicked out of here.”

Former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee with Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White and then-Police Chief Greg Suhr in 2013. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

A 41-second video of the incident went viral, and the confrontation made headlines in local media. Meanwhile, activists pointed fingers at Lee for shielding the police department and its chief, Greg Suhr, from accountability. In 2015, multiple SFPD officers were found to have sent racist text messages that demeaned the people they were in charge of protecting and serving. And the high-profile police killings of Amilcar Perez Lopez, Mario Woods and Luis Góngora Pat left many questioning why officers were so quick to resort to lethal force, sometimes within seconds, without making clear attempts at deescalation. 

That was when Equipto’s mother, longtime activist Maria Cristina Gutierrez, suggested the idea of a hunger strike. In April 2016, the mother and son enlisted educator and rapper Ike Pinkston; rapper Sellassie Blackwell; and Edwin Lindo, a candidate in the District 9 Supervisor race. Together, they called themselves the Frisco 5.

On April 21, 2016, the activists set up tents in front of the Valencia Street police station in the Mission district, declaring that they’d stay there, sustaining themselves with coconut water and herbal tea, until Lee resigned or Suhr was fired. They ended up waging one of the longest hunger strikes in San Francisco history, forcing city leaders to examine failing policies and make substantive reforms. 

Though many necessary changes remain to be made at SFPD, the hunger strike was a heartening example of effective direct action during a decade when protests such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter were repeatedly squelched by local governments and police. 

Thousands of protesters joined the Frisco 5 in a march to San Francisco City Hall in May 2016. (Nastia Voynovskaya)

For the Frisco 5, the hunger strike was a last resort. “We had protested, sent emails, gone to commission hearings,” says Lindo. “You name it, we had probably done it as far as some type of organizing, and it didn’t seem to be working.” 

After the Frisco 5 set up camp, thousands of people joined them in front of the police station and in marches to City Hall. In addition to Suhr’s removal and Lee’s resignation, the people marching called for independent investigations of officer-involved shootings and criminal charges for the police officers involved in the killings of Nieto, Woods and others. Word spread through social media via the #Frisco5 hashtag—even Erykah Badu tweeted about it—and stories about the hunger strike appeared in major outlets like Mother Jones and the BBC. 

As the hunger strike stretched on into its second week, the Frisco 5 began using wheelchairs to conserve strength, and volunteer doctors supervised them as their bodies became depleted. By the 17th day, they reluctantly agreed to go to the hospital. Each person had lost nearly 30 pounds, and doctors told them that they risked irreversible organ damage and even death. Dozens of the Frisco 5’s supporters continued to protest at City Hall in the following days. 

“The community all came together, they got their ribs broken,” said Equipto, describing demonstrators’ clashes with baton-wielding police. “They took over [City Hall] while we were in the hospital. I was watching live footage, crying and shit, like ‘Oh my god, look at all my folks in there.’” 

Hunger striker Maria Cristina Gutierrez with author Rebecca Solnit. (Bert Johnson)

Then, on May 19, 2016, officers shot and killed Jessica Nelson Williams, an unarmed black woman. By that point, the mayor and Suhr himself had run out of excuses for SFPD’s use of force. The department had been responsible for three fatal shootings in less than six months. “The community is grieving, and I join them in that grief,” Lee said in a press conference. 

At Lee’s request, Suhr resigned later that day. 

Though it had been one of their central demands, Suhr’s resignation was bittersweet for the Frisco 5. “I was so conflicted as to why it had to happen like that,” says Equipto. “I was in tears, didn’t really know how to feel. I was happy that the motherfucker was gone, but why did it take Jessica Nelson having to lose her life for this to happen?” 

Reforms progressed from there. In October 2016, the Department of Justice published a report with 272 recommendations for SFPD, mostly focusing on transparency and community policing. Today, under Police Chief William Scott and Mayor London Breed, the department has implemented about 10 percent of the DOJ’s recommendations—a pace many activists decry as far too slow. 

That includes PolicyLink’s managing director Anand Subramanian, who helped uncover biases in SFPD in the wake of 2015’s racist text messaging scandal. Subramanian says that a crucial next step is dismantling California’s Peace Officers Bill of Rights. “It gives officers unnecessary privileges when it comes to investigations of police misconduct—privileges that no one in other professions in any other contexts really get,” says Subramanian. 

Many in San Francisco continue to voice concerns about SFPD’s disproportionate use of force against people of color and its treatment of homeless people. For his part, Equipto spends many of his evenings filming SFPD officers’ encounters with civilians with the group Frisco Copwatch.

Still, San Francisco Police Commission President Robert Hirsch says that in the past several years, there have been significant improvements at SFPD. “The department uses far less force than it used to use. It trains officers in crisis intervention, it developed a review board where every incident involving an officer is reviewed by the department and discussed publicly in a commission meeting,” says Hirsch. 

Though there is a long way to go, in the past two years, crucial reforms have also occurred on the state level: California passed new legislation aimed at curbing police misconduct, including unsealing decades of police records, and raising the standard for acceptable use of force. In 2019, there haven’t been any officer-involved shootings in San Francisco, according to the police department’s latest report. 

“I’m sure protests helped precipitate it,” says Hirsch. “They put tremendous pressure on the mayor, the city and the department to do something different, because the status quo was not working.”

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