A video that just surfaced, filmed at Bloomingdale's at SF's Westfield Mall, depicts a horrifying scene that brings up issues about SF's problem of untreated mental illness, and inexcusable violence committed in a misguided vigilante mindset.
This video comes to us from bystanders in Bloomingdale's, and/or a security guard who at the time was trying to encourage a nude young man, wearing only a face mask and carrying a fire extinguisher that likely belonged to the store. It may have been shot last weekend, though the date is not clear. The video was reposted by often problematic SF Streets Instagram account, which is filled with similar incidents involving Walgreens thefts, the mentally ill and homeless, and all the "undesirable" aspects of SF crime and street life that has come to define the city on conservative media channels. (SF Streets picked up the video from a breathlessly pro-Trump, pro-DeSantis Twitter account called Libs of Tik Tok, which itself stems from an already suspended Tik Tok account of the same name, with the caption "Meanwhile in the San Francisco hellhole.")
The young man in the video, clearly experiencing a mental health incident, is unresponsive to the security guard telling him to leave the store, and he only stands still at the bottom of an escalator, not speaking at all. Then, from behind, comes an attack.
The security guard can be heard saying that the attacker, who strikes the nude man in the head and knocks him to the ground with a store display stand, is not affiliated with the store.
The assailant then proceeds to walk out of the store through the Mission Street doors, and the young man who was struck gets up off the ground, takes the weaponized store display, and chases after the assailant seeking a fight.
The guard can also be heard saying the SFPD is on the way, but the resolution of this incident is not clear.
SFist has reached out to the SFPD to see if any arrests were made, or what happened with the assault victim. We'll update this story if and when we receive a response.
Update: SFPD Public Information Officer Robert Rueca responded to our inquiry and said that the department had no record of this incident being reported. "We are unable to locate or confirm this incident of a naked man inside a department store," Rueca said. "We have seen the video of the incident, but we are not able to locate any police record of this."