San Francisco police Chief George Gascon will meet with community members tonight to discuss crime and violence against the city’s Asian community.
Community leaders have met in recent weeks to try to quell tensions between the Asian-American and African-American communities, inflamed by reports of violence against Asian-Americans by black youths in southeastern neighborhoods of the city.
Gascon has said that while there may have been a racial component to some of the crimes, there is no evidence that they were hate crimes. Rather, he said, they were likely attempted robberies or crimes of opportunity.
At tonight’s town hall meeting in the Bayview, Gascon will speak about citywide and regional crime trends and about recent police redeployments of officers to transit corridors–where much of the violence has occurred, police Lt. Lyn Tomioka said. He will then take questions.
The entire community is invited, Tomioka said.
“By making this town hall meeting available to everybody, we want to bring them together and answer those questions, and address their concerns,” Tomioka said.
An inspector from the homicide unit is expected to discuss the murder of 83-year-old Huan Chen, who was assaulted by several youths near a bus stop at Third Street and Oakdale Avenue on Jan. 24. Chen died if his injuries on March 19.
The meeting takes place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Southeast Community College at 1800 Oakdale Ave.
