So there's this guy named Fofana Mbemba, and he's well known to police and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi for working Fisherman's Wharf over the years to scam tourists out of money through various means. His latest tactic has involved pretending to be a parking attendant at a self-service lot, wearing a t-shirt with some insignia on it that looks vaguely official, and saying "that'll be $10 sir" whenever someone parks. Then he disappears, and all the cars with his fake tags on them get parking tickets.
Needless to say, Chuck Nevius is steaming mad that this dude has been allowed to perpetrate his crimes for so many years Mirkarimi mentioned him by name in proposing a recent ordinance to get various patrol factions to coordinate, saying that Mbemba's been arrested 14 times for the same sort of stunts, and even went to state prison, but he keeps coming back.
But Mbemba got arrested once again Monday, and Nevius can hardly contain his glee in the description of his arrest:
On Monday, Mbemba was spotted by Rip Malloy, who is the Port of San Francisco's property manager for Fisherman's Wharf and has had several run-ins with him. Malloy called the cops, but when Mbemba made a run for it, Malloy tried to restrain him."I got him in the Malloy death grip," said Malloy. "A couple of good-ol'-boy tourists said, 'You want some help there?' I said, 'Hell yeah, jump in any time.' "
... "I lost one of the tassels on my Cole Haan's," Malloy lamented.
Anyway, we're sure he'll be back. And at least he's not burning tourists' faces with cigarettes or throwing bottles of salad dressing at people.