The radically progressive prosecutor in San Francisco thought she could weasel out of charging Garrett Doty for attacking former commissioner Don Carmignani with a crowbar-like piece of bent pipe, on April 5. Once the public learned District Attorney Brooke Jenkins planned to call what Doty did “self-defense” they went crazy. Video had already gone viral showing the attack was both premeditated and relentless. While Carmignani can declare a victory on that front, he might not like where all the publicity leads. He could turn out to be charged with violent crimes, himself.
Prosecutor flips over
The San Francisco prosecutor in charge of working the attack on Don Carmignani “made an abrupt about-face on Wednesday and said they will now move ahead with charging a vagrant who beat a former fire commissioner with a crowbar.”
The DA only took action because the New York Post “revealed they were quietly trying to drop the case.” The previous day they announced that “transient Garrett Doty was acting in self-defense.” They were dropping the charges.
Carmignani came unglued. He went to the news and “spoke out about the decision.” he also released a new video showing the attack. Based on the new evidence, the prosecutor “quickly backtracked.” They went back to the media and explained “we have not dismissed the charges in this case.”
UPDATE: @SFDAOffice plans to drop assault & battery charges against Garret Doty in confrontation w/ex-SF Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani on grounds of self-defense – & could charge Carmignani for discharging pepper spray, says Carmignani’s atty, releasing more videos of incident pic.twitter.com/GCSySzv6AI
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) April 26, 2023
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins signed the statement which notes “holding violent offenders accountable is a top priority for our office to protect public safety.” The community isn’t all that convinced.
“Following the arrest of Garrett Allen Doty, in connection to an assault on Don Carmignani on April 5, 2023, we filed multiple felony charges against Doty and sought to detain him for violent felonies.” Then they learned what lead up to the beating.
The new information isn’t nearly enough to justify a “self-defense” claim but does add needed context. The prosecutor called Carmignani and “informed the charges were to be dropped.” The reason was because “he instigated the assault by deploying pepper spray on the homeless man, whom he was trying to move on from outside his mother’s home.”
Chance to make a statement
The liberal San Francisco prosecutor seems to have something sneaky up her sleeve. She’s not happy to get pressured into having to do her job. They got all set for Doty’s preliminary hearing but delayed it until Thursday “to give Carmignani an opportunity to give a statement on Wednesday.”
They seemingly want to give him some rope to hang himself with. The 52-year-old former San Francisco fire commissioner may have been “beaten with a crowbar by a transient” but that doesn’t make him “innocent,” either.
“At our request, the court continued this case until tomorrow for a hearing,” a statement from the prosecutor notes. “We have subpoenaed [Carmignani] to appear tomorrow through his counsel. The defendant [Doty] remains in custody.”
EXCLUSIVE: Defense attorneys for the man accused of attacking former SF Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani say the person shown in this video bear spraying a homeless person in the face appears to be Carmignani.
The video, taken in November 2021, is part of a trove of new evidence… pic.twitter.com/tLaUqqDGjP
— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) April 26, 2023
It seems they’re getting ready to charge Carmignani with crimes of his own. Ms. Jenkins added that the alleged victim “has not provided an interview to the San Francisco Police Department on this case despite multiple requests.” That might be because he’s also a suspect. “We are hopeful he is available to testify in open court, as he has now given an on-camera media interview about the attack from his recollection.”
Dotty’s public defender, Kleigh Hathaway, is still “asking for the charges against her client to be dropped.” That’s because, she argues, “police have reason to believe Carmignani was involved in eight separate acts of violence.” Ones involving bear spray, “perpetrated against people who are homeless.”
There is no denying that the city “neglected” Carmignani’s “mother’s calls to 911 asking for help — she had witnessed three people consuming drugs and harassing neighbors in her entryway.” If the prosecutor has to charge someone, she’s going after the prominent White guy who thinks he can go vigilante and clean up the city, since the cops won’t raise a finger.
