SF supes obtain threats in mail following CEO Garry Tan’s tweets
At the very least two San Francisco supervisors obtained a threatening letter at their houses on Tuesday and two extra filed police stories after Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator and a heavy marketing campaign donor to efforts to oust progressive politicians, posted online that seven supervisors should die a slow death.
Tan wrote “Die gradual motherfuckers” in reference to Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Connie Chan, Myrna Melgar, Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen, Dean Preston and Ahsha Safaí in a late-night rant Saturday. Throughout his on-line tirade, Tan posted photos of his private liquor stash, and indicated to a fellow Twitter-user that he was inebriated.
The “die gradual, motherfucker” line was a reference to a Tupac Shakur music, and Tan later apologized. That 1996 music, “Hit ‘Em Up,” escalated the simmering East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry right into a deadly feud; Shakur was gunned down three months after its launch.
The named supervisors didn’t take the incident frivolously: Peskin and Chan on Tuesday filed police reports, Melgar and Safaí have pledged to do the identical and each Peskin and Preston immediately obtained a letter to their houses citing Tan’s diatribe and wishing loss of life upon them and their households.
When requested if she felt personally threatened by Tan’s habits, Chan responded “Seeing what my colleague[s] obtained within the mail? Sure, completely. I’ve a 10-year-old. I don’t inform folks the place my little one attends college.”
The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the hate mail despatched to Preston and the police stories filed by Chan and Peskin. Peskin at 8:40 p.m. confirmed to Mission Native that he, too, obtained a threatening letter at his residence. The envelope was emblazoned with a smiling portrait of Tan.
“Garry Tan is true!” the letter despatched to Peskin, Preston and, maybe, others learn. “I want a gradual and painful loss of life for you and your family members.”
Preston has specifically drawn the venom of Tan: Preston is the lone democratic socialist on the Board of Supervisors, an odious place to Tan, and Tan has donated $5,000 to Preston’s opponent and pledged one other $50,000 to the trouble to unseat him.
Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was despatched to speak a political opinion. No threats have been supposed.”
The board’s 5 Jewish members — Peskin, Ronen, Melgar, Preston and Rafael Mandelman — in October received antisemitic postcards at their houses. Peskin mentioned a number of supervisors have obtained as many as 4 extra antisemitic letters or postcards since then.
He famous that the precise phrase “This mail was despatched to speak a political opinion. No threats have been supposed” was written on one of many disturbing communiques he obtained earlier.
Chan says she obtained a letter in December at her residence accusing her of “white genocide.” Chan, who’s Chinese language, is married to a white man and has a mixed-race little one.
Whereas she first thought to “brush off” Tan’s feedback, Chan says she was initially unaware how tied in he’s politically. She then realized that Tan has hosted quite a few reasonable supervisor candidates at his residence, together with her main challenger, Marjan Philhour.
Chan, in her police report, notes that she had filed a previous report final 12 months in opposition to Philhour’s staffer, Forrest Liu, whom she accuses of twice bodily threatening her — publicly and in individual.
After realizing the affiliation of Tan to Philhour to Liu, she mentioned “it then dawned on me that these unhinged people who’ve wished me loss of life on-line in addition to bodily threaten me are linked, it grew to become alarming to me that the threats are doubtlessly violent and imminent.”
Liu didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Tan has certainly hosted San Francisco reasonable political figures at his Mission District residence, together with District Legal professional Brooke Jenkins, Philhour and District 9 candidate Trevor Chandler.
Philhour and Chandler each criticized their backer Tan in mild of his feedback.
“Threats to at least one’s life or security haven’t any place in political discourse,” Philhour mentioned.
“It’s by no means okay to advocate violence, be it significantly or in jest,” mentioned Chandler.
Jenkins didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Peskin immediately requested the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace to look into requiring public disclosures from recipients of political donations from “purveyors of hate and violence.”
“When people in our society, particularly and most regarding these with cash,
energy and affect, name for public servants to be tortured or killed, it’s crossing a vibrant line — and should not be condoned by society,” Peskin mentioned immediately in Board chambers. “To disregard it’s harmful and a disservice to democracy.”
However tying this potential laws to the message Tan communicated to his 408,000 Twitter followers would look like a severe authorized problem: Half a dozen attorneys and judges advised Mission Native that, nonetheless ill-advised, Tan’s feedback don’t rise to the authorized definition of a loss of life menace.
Under Penal Code 422, an individual making a felony menace should harbor “particular intent that the assertion, made verbally, in writing, or by way of an digital communication gadget, is to be taken as a menace…”
“It’s offensive, however it’s speech protected by the First Modification,” mentioned Berkeley College of Regulation dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It doesn’t meet the usual for incitement.”
Tan is a well-heeled donor for San Francisco’s reasonable causes and candidates. He sits on the board of Develop SF, a political stress group favoring reasonable causes and candidates and focusing on progressives. Tan gave greater than $100,000 to the 2022 campaign to recall then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin. He gave no less than $20,000 to the 2021 school board recall, too.
Tan couldn’t be reached for remark. Neither Y Combinator nor Develop SF instantly responded to requests for remark.