A San Francisco police officer said he was in fear for his safety when he drove against traffic down a one-way street to shove a Black woman against the wall and arrest her for jaywalking last month.
But California’s Right to Walk law enacted in January 2023 forbids police officers from arresting people for jaywalking unless there is “danger of a collision” which was not the case here.
Witnesses say Christina Porter stepped into the crosswalk while the pedestrian traffic light was still green, so even if the jaywalking law still existed, it would not have applied in this case.
Nevertheless, surveillance video shows multiple police cars speeding up to the scene with sirens wailing to assist the cop with the arrest — a questionable use of resources considering the department has been claiming it is short-staffed since last year, which is why response times have increased.
Porter, 34, said she was left traumatized by the incident with multiple injuries, including a separated shoulder, nerve damage, back pain, neck pain and a concussion. She has since retained an attorney and has filed a notice of claim against San Francisco, which is the first step in filing a lawsuit.
“I’m not a threat, I’m just trying to get my life back,” the mother of five children told KTVU through tears, referring to how she is a survivor of domestic abuse. “When I told him I was a survivor, he was just, ‘I don’t care, this doesn’t matter right now.'”
San Francisco Police Officer Joshua McFall told witnesses he had no choice but to arrest her in an aggressive manner because she could have had a weapon in her purse.
However, she only reached into her purse to retrieve her identification after he had demanded it, according to her lawyers.
“Stop reaching into your purse!” McFall told her as he reached for his gun. “You are under arrest.”
He later told a witness recording him, “I didn’t want it to go this way, but when people put me in that position, I don’t have a choice.” He also told the same witness that “putting a camera in my face is rude” when the witness was simply trying to hold him accountable for his actions.
But had it not been for the multiple cameras recording the arrest, Porter would have had a much harder time taking legal action against the police department.
According to the complaint filed on Aug. 12 by Pointer and Buelna, a California law firm that describes itself as “Lawyers For The People”:
“Ofc. McFall failed to make any reasonable effort to bring Ms. Porter into custody without using excessive force,” according to the notice of claim.
“Instead, McFall aggressively approached Ms. Porter from the moment he stopped her. Additionally, Ofc. McFall displayed no attempts to de-escalate the situation or imply any tactics to calm the situation down and approach Ms. Porter out of a place of concern for public safety. The other officers that showed up at the scene assisted Ofc. McFall in his improper conduct.”
Christina Porter‘s Arrest
The incident took place on July 29 after Porter left an Office Depot and began walking across the street when the pedestrian signal light indicated she had time to cross. However, she had the misfortune of crossing the street in front of McFall who was sitting in his car waiting for the traffic light to change.
Although the traffic light is not visible in the video, it apparently turned green while she was walking in front of the officer’s car, leading to him blowing his horn. Porter responded by lifting her arms as she continued walking across the street and stepping onto the sidewalk on the other side.
McFall could have continued on his way, but he responded by turning on his emergency lights and pulling up to the curb behind her. He claimed to have told her to stop, but the video shows she was wearing headphones and continued walking as if not hearing him.
The video then shows McFall driving into oncoming traffic to pull ahead of her before stepping out of his patrol car and shoving her against a wall. That was when witnesses began recording with their phones.
“Stop resisting!” he yells as she responds by saying, “I’m not resisting!”
More cop cars speed up to the scene, sirens wailing, and several cops hop out of their cars to assist in the arrest.
Other witnesses start demanding their badge numbers, and one witness can be heard saying, “But jaywalking is not even illegal.”
Not only is there a state law forbidding jaywalking citations unless there is a safety issue, but the San Francisco Police Department has implemented its own policies forbidding “pretext stops,” which are when cops detain a citizen for a minor crime with the purpose of investigating that person for a more serious crime.
The policy was implemented last year shortly after the state law was enacted, and it lists several low-level offenses it considers pretext stops, including jaywalking, and states the following:
“Pretext stops are disproportionately carried out against people of color and return negligible public safety benefits. The fiscal, human and societal costs they impose on our City are unjustified in light of more public safety tools at the Department’s disposal.”
California Assembly Member Phil Ting, who authored the new state law, said his goal was to reduce racial profiling.
“Everybody has the freedom to walk across the street without being worried about being cited or being stopped,” Ting told CBS 8 last year after the law was enacted. “We see that African-Americans are five times more likely to get cited than other individuals.”
The incident forever changed Porter’s view of police and not for the better.
“I just don’t trust them no more,” Porter told KTVU. “I seriously don’t trust them. I feel like they abuse and use their power and authority to brutalize and just torment and harass civilians.”
