We have a call out to Mirkarimi now.
And in other this-will-never-be-over news, Supervisor Jane Kim, one of four votes against removing the sheriff from office, said in a statement explaining her decision that she would support recalling him.
To recap, on Tuesday the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declined to remove Mirkarimi from his position as San Francisco sheriff on charges, filed by Mayor Ed Lee, of official misconduct. The charge stemmed from the sheriff's guilty plea related to an incident of domestic violence against his wife. Four supervisors -- David Campos, John Avalos, Kim and Christina Olague -- voted against removal, depriving the mayor of the nine-vote super-majority he needed to prevail.
Today on KQED's Forum program, Suzy Loftus, a member of the San Francisco Police Commission who has also prosecuted many domestic violence cases, also strongly questioned whether Mirkarimi could perform his job in relation to domestic violence...
"There's been one overriding concern...from the moment we learned of the domestic violence that occurred... Can someone who is convicted of domestic violence, who has subsequently minimized the violence, who has been a part of vilifying witnesseses who come forward to report the violence, discharge the duties of sheriff in one of the most progressive cities in America, where we really believe we are leaders in the fight against violence, against women and vulnerable communities? It's been clear...he can't do that. We're scratching our heads at how the Board of Supervisors found otherwise."
And two domestic violence organizations, Domestic Violence Consortium and La Casa de las Madres, have sent out this joint statement:
The advocacy community shares the concern of the San Francisco Ethics Commission, the mayor, the district attorney, the city attorney, seven supervisors and two out of three San Francisco voters--that a person convicted of domestic violence, and one who has consistently minimized the severity of this crime, is simply unfit to serve in a leading law enforcement role in our city. It is a conflict of interest to have the current Sheriff oversee San Francisco's pioneering domestic violence programs, and as a probationer, he cannot even access his own jail without special approval that he must give himself. San Francisco deserves better
Mirkarimi, for his part, today criticized both law enforcement and the domestic violence community on Forum, saying, "To this day, nobody from the domestic violence agencies, nobody from the police department, district attorney, has ever reached out... [to] the very person they claimed to defend, the very person that they have tried to use." That was a reference to his wife, Eliana Lopez, who disavowed the case against her husband despite willingly appearing in a video made by a neighbor in which she showed a bruise she'd received from Mirkarimi.