Mehrdad Mostafavi said he once considered his third floor Millennium Tower condo his sanctuary – even posting a sign near his kitchen proclaiming: “THIS IS OUR HAPPY PLACE.”

But that changed as the luxury rise continued to sink and tilt over the last decade, he says, and he started getting recurring flooding problems from overflowing drain pipes. He pointed to repairs he has had to make in his ceiling and walls as well as around his washing machine and his toilet. He says wastewater has even mysteriously bubbled up and filled his kitchen sink.

But, he said, all that was nothing like what he said he faced when he came home late on Sunday, June 11. The next day, he took us up to show us what happened.

“When I came home last night, the water … it was up to here,” said Mostafavi, a 58-year-old network engineer – pointing to the black and brown muck that had filled his kitchen sink and overflowed onto his countertop, cabinets, flooring and even his oven and his nearby office.

Millennium Tower Jun 9

SF's Millennium Tower now tilting more than ever to the west after early recovery

INVESTIGATIVE Apr 24

SF High-Rise Blames Millennium Tower for Its Recent Shattered Windows

Mostafavi says he fears he will end up having to replace all his cabinets as well as the entire hardwood floor in the two-bedroom unit he bought back in 2012 for $865,000.

But Mostafavi is not alone in suffering plumbing problems. A renter on the third floor who didn’t want to be named provided NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit photos and videos of problems that she says left her entry hall hardwood floor damaged and carpets around her washing machine stained. The problems started soon after she moved there in 2021, when she had trouble with her toilet.

Millennium Tower staff blamed wipes – that she says were flushable – for clogging her system. But the problems continued, she said, after she stopped using the wipes. Crews now snake out her kitchen drain line twice a month, she says, showing us the records of their visits.

“They said that they do this to prevent clogging. And then even though they’re still doing this and we’re still having things foaming up from the kitchen, from the kitchen sink regularly,” she said.

In August of the year she moved into her third floor unit, the lead engineer in charge of the ongoing fix project, Ron Hamburger, briefed city officials about “Functionality Issues” associated with the building. He pointed to one potential problem with the 1/8th inch downward slope per foot required by code to ensure proper drain operation. Drains tilting to the south and east, he said, will be most vulnerable to the building’s northwest sinking and tilting.

“Sewers sloping to the south and east will experience decreased slope and may become a problem,” he said, adding that the “drain line from the (second floor) kitchen has become problematic and is being maintained with periodic chemical flushing. It may be necessary to adjust this and other lines to re-establish slope.”

Millennium Tower officials didn’t answer questions about Mostafavi’s flooding issues. But they sent us a statement saying that all the water problems in the building are limited to just two third-floor units. They blame the backups on wipes and other non-flushable items, not tilting.

They cite a building engineer’s report dated in January 2022, five months after Hamburger’s assessment, recounting that tower staff was “running into issues regarding educating tenants on their habits regarding sanitary wipes and other non-flushable products that are causing backups in these lines.”

Tower officials stressed that Hamburger had “merely stated that it was possible” for such backups to happen when he gave that earlier assessment. They added that drain line slopes have “always remained within code standards.” However, monitoring data shows the tower’s tilt has gone from 19 inches at the time of Hamburger’s report to 29 inches now.

“We cannot expect this to be a one off – It’s a systemic issue that requires attention,” said Mark Savel, an architect and contractor who studies building failures like the Berkeley balcony collapse that killed six people back in 2015.

He says that while wipes flushed down toilets can obviously be a problem, tilting is the most likely cause of the backups being reported by the two tower residents. The only permanent solution, he says, is to adjust the drain lines to make sure the pipes are properly sloped downward, despite the tilt.

The time to do that, he says, may be now. “This is undoubtedly a health concern,” Savel said. “It’s a potential for property damage and it’s going to continue, if not worsen, over time.”

Mostafavi recalled the initial joy he felt when he bought his unit in 2012.

“I was so happy, a beautiful apartment,” he said. “I was so happy coming here, moving here.”

Now, he says, he just feels trapped in his once-beloved condo, unable to sell.

“There’s so many problems happening here now, it is more than bothersome,” he said as he stood next the sign proclaiming it to be his “happy place.”

“It is not manageable anymore moneywise and time wise, I don’t know what to do,’” he said, adding that he should change the sign outside his kitchen to reflect his current nightmare. “I have to put ‘UN-‘ here — ‘UN-HAPPY PLACE.'”

The completion of work along Fremont Street last week comes as the tower is listing 29 inches at the northwest corner, monitoring data shows that much of that tilt happened during digging and other activities surrounding the fix project that began early in 2021.

The Fremont Street work involved tying the tower to an extended foundation supported by 12 piles sunk to bedrock on the tower’s west side. The four-day load transfer operation was completed on June 14, monitoring records show.

The work came as engineers had already supported the north side of the tower to six piles sunk to bedrock along Mission Street.

The total of 18 perimeter piles currently handle about 500,000 pounds of building load apiece. The plan is for them to take on twice that load, with a goal of arresting settlement and reversing some of the current tilt by shifting more of the load to the east and south.

Millennium Tower Jun 9

SF's Millennium Tower now tilting more than ever to the west after early recovery

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 21

Mission Street Closed After Windows Fail at Salesforce Building, Millennium Tower in High Winds

Millennium fix officials indicated in a statement that the building is now starting to recover some of its tilt. That’s backed up by newly released rooftop monitoring data, showing that the newly supported tower is leaning about a quarter inch less at the northwest corner that it was just days before.

But David Williams, an expert in deep foundations, says its simply too soon to make any pronouncements of success.

He recalled that back in January, fix engineers were quick to hail the Mission Street operation a successful based on similar early data. But subsequent monitoring results showed that didn’t last and the tower’s westward tilt eventually got worse, not better. At the time of last week’s operation, in fact, the tower was tilting more than ever to the west.

“They have claimed early success before – that was premature,” Williams said. “So right now, we’ll have to wait and see how it responds.”

The Diocese’s attorneys declined an interview request from NBC Bay Area at a hearing Tuesday, but argued in a recent motion that confidentiality will protect accused clergy against “the disclosure of a ‘scandalous’ and deeply personal matter in publicly filed court documents.”

They added that confidentiality was necessary to “protect the privacy and to prevent identity theft and harassment of those individuals,” both alleged victims and accused clergy alike.

Plaintiff’s attorneys and victim advocates blasted the move and questioned the diocese’s commitment to transparency in the widening sex abuse scandal.

“What we see is not an endeavor to shed light on that cancerous past,” said Brent Weisenberg, an attorney representing plaintiffs and other creditors in the Oakland bankruptcy case. “We’re here with a request that on the first day of the case, all these names remain secret.”

Judge William J. Lafferty did not rule on the motion during Tuesday’s hearing, but instead suggested attorneys for the diocese file a new motion specifying exactly which names should be kept under seal and why.

The Diocese of Oakland currently faces more than 300 child sexual abuse lawsuits stemming from AB 218, a 2019 state law that opened a three-year window for such cases to proceed in court despite the statute of limitations. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the figure could climb past 400 once every case was tallied.

Oakland May 8

Diocese of Oakland Files for Bankruptcy in Wake of Hundreds of Sex Abuse Lawsuits

oakland diocese May 8

Diocese of Oakland Files for Bankruptcy in Wake of Hundreds of Sex Abuse Lawsuits

In 2019, the Diocese of Oakland released a list of more than 60 priests who have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children. Attorneys for the diocese signaled Tuesday their confidentiality motion would not apply to the priests on that list.

However, as NBC Bay Area first reported, there are hundreds of Northern California priests who now face abuse allegations for the first time, including many from the Oakland diocese, and it’s currently unclear how those names will be treated. None of those newly accused priests have been added to the Diocese of Oakland’s public list of suspected abusers, despite some being named in multiple recent lawsuits.

Publicly available documents filed in state civil court have already named many such priests, including Oakland’s now-deceased founding bishop, Bishop Floyd Begin, and Weisenberg argued the court can’t seal what’s already hit the public domain.

An attorney for the diocese said in court they needed more time to review those names before making a determination on their confidentiality request.

Outside the courthouse, advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), held a small demonstration. They accused Oakland Bishop Michael Barber of using the bankruptcy process to shield the identities of alleged abusers from public disclosure.

“What I would like to ask you Bishop Michael Barber,” former Oakland priest Tim Stier said. “Is if you’re publicly committed to transparency and accountability on child abuse issues, I think you should tell your lawyers that because they seem to be taking a different tact.”

SNAP urged the Diocese to publish the names of all priests accused in recently filed lawsuits and reiterated calls for California Attorney General Rob Bonta to publish findings from his office’s ongoing probe into abuse within the Catholic church.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Oakland did not respond to NBC Bay Area’s request for comment Tuesday.

The diocese’s new confidentiality motion is due next month.

One of the attackers, Danielle Chavez, told investigators, “She was motivated to attack … O’Connor because she did not like the kind of charges that O’Connor was in custody for.”

These new details are revealed in the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office’s incident report of the Oct. 24 jail attack, obtained exclusive by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit.

O’Connor has been in custody without bail at Elmwood Correctional Facility for more than a year and a half. She faces 39 criminal counts for allegedly hosting multiple booze-filled parties for her underaged son and his underaged friends in 2020 and 2021. Prosecutors say, at times, the Los Gatos mother encouraged some of the minors to be sexual with each other. O’Connor has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to the incident report, a Sheriff’s deputy was escorting O’Connor to her cell when other inmates in that cell “began to shout and make threats that they would beat her up.” Some of the inmates apparently knew about her child endangerment charges.

“So, prisoners have their own code of ethics, if you will, and they have a point where certain crimes are not acceptable,” said retired police detective Mike Leininger, referring to the child endangerment charges.

O’Connor told investigators that deputies asked if she wanted protective custody, but O’Connor reportedly declined even though she “felt intimidated.” Why O’Connor declined protective custody was not specified in the incident report.

“About ten minutes after … O’Connor was placed in the cell, she was attacked by” Danielle Chavez, Erika Amaya, Marianna Gardea, Anita Quiroz and Sophia Vigil.

In March, the Investigative Unit was the first news organization to report on the jail attack. The Sheriff’s Office’s statement of facts reported, “The assault was carried out using hands and feet, and the level of force used was likely [to] produce great bodily injury … the assault lasted for approximately 16 seconds.”

According to the incident report, initially O’Connor, “did not want to seek prosecution against the inmates who attacked her” because “she was afraid of retaliation.” She also told an investigator “she remembered …Chavez said … O’Connor needed to pay each of the female inmates inside the dorm $300 a week” if she wanted to stay in that cell with them.” Chavez denied this allegation when officials asked her about it.

Court documents show Chavez, Gardea, Vigil, Amaya and Quiroz were prosecuted. They all pled no contest to the assault charge and were sentenced to 1 to 2 years in county jail and probation. The Investigative Unit reached out to their individual attorneys who either did not respond or said they had no comment.

“Should [an incarcerated person] be concerned about their safety? All prisoners should be concerned about their safety. There are gang issues. There are subsets of these gangs now. They all need to be concerned about their safety, and the [facility] also reacts accordingly,” said Leininger.

In a statement to the Investigative Unit, Santa Cara County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said it, “continues to provide the highest level of security for our incarcerated individuals within our correctional facilities … Once housed, the risk assessment becomes an on-going process throughout the person’s incarcerations.”

O’Connor’s attorney had no comment.

Catch up on the Investigative Unit’s reporting on Shannon O’Connor’s criminal case:

Exclusive: What Los Gatos High School knew about Shannon O’Connor and what officials did about it

Los Gatos mom accused of hosting alcohol-fueled parties declines to change plea

Los Gatos mom attacked in jail, hospitalized

Freely In Hope, the nonprofit hosting the event, is primarily based in Kenya and Zambia and works to equip survivors of sexual violence with education, counseling, and other supportive services.

The panel discussion ‘Redeeming Sanctuaries’ will take place Saturday from 4-6pm at the Misona event space in San Francisco.  Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban, who is a volunteer board member of Freely In Hope, will moderate the event. To reserve a ticket or learn how to stream the event live, visit FreelyInHope.org.

“We don’t call our church building sanctuaries for no reason,” said Nikole Lim, founder and international director of Freely In Hope.  “They should be a place of healing and safety and wellness and community.”

Watch: Nikole Lim’s decade-long journey to support survivors

Lim, a Bay Area native, first learned of the prevalence of sexual violence as a documentary filmmaker abroad, but eventually chose to put down her camera in exchange for philanthropy.  Lim has spent the past decade walking alongside survivors through her work with Freely In Hope.

“In my work as a documentary filmmaker, I was traveling in and out of homes, in and out of communities, in and out of villages, capturing story after story of trauma and trauma,” Lim said.  “After so many years of doing that work, it felt really insufficient and eventually unethical because I could not actually respond directly to the needs of the survivors were sharing with me.”

In addition to Lim, the panel will also include Irene Cho, a sexual abuse survivor who was profiled in a recent NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit report about the prevalence of sexual abuse in the AAPI community. 

Watch: Sexual violence in AAPI rarely discussed, often unreported

Rowena Chiu, a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, will also take part in the panel and discuss her accusations against her former employer.  Jean Nangwala, a singer and staff member of Freely In Hope, will also lead the discussion and reflect on the abuse she says was inflicted on her as a 19-year-old by a leader in her church.

AAPI community May 31

Sexual Violence in AAPI Community More Pervasive Than We Realize, Advocates Say

INVESTIGATIVE Sep 29, 2022

Hundreds of Priests With SF Archdiocese Accused of Sexual Abuse

“I went to the other leadership in my church and said, ‘okay, so how do I go about this? Like, this person is doing this,’ and everyone was like, ‘there’s no way he could do that – you probably seduced him.’  And so as a 19-year-old thinking, ‘Oh, I probably seduced this man, it was probably me — oh, I probably instigated this,’” Nangwala said.

“I’m hoping if there’s any survivor who’s questioning if they are the reason and the cause of what happened to them, after hearing my story … they will realize that they’re not alone and it’s okay to speak up.”

Contact The Investigative Unit

Follow @BigadShaban

submit tips | 1-888-996-TIPS | e-mail Bigad

A mass shooting in two farms that left seven dead and one critically injured. 

A survivor of the Half Moon Bay mass shooting spoke out for the first time Tuesday.

Investigative reporter Hilda Gutierrez sat with the victim and has the story in video player above.

The tower is currently leaning more than 29 inches at the northwest corner of Fremont and Mission streets, much of the added tilt occurring during the digging needed to prepare to support the tower along two sides.

But earlier this year, fix engineers saw signs of progress when the building was partially supported by six piles sunk along the base of its north side along Mission Street. While the tower appears stable on the Mission side, new rooftop-based monitoring data shows the tower is now tilting a half inch more to the west than before being supported on the north side.

INVESTIGATIVE Apr 24

SF High-Rise Blames Millennium Tower for Its Recent Shattered Windows

Investigative Unit Mar 22

SF's Mission Street High-Rise Window Failures Trigger Call for Stepped Up Inspections

“As far as remedial work goes, this is just a mess,” said veteran geotechnical engineer Bob Pyke, a long time skeptic of the $100 million plan to fix the troubled tower. “You spend all this money, but you still have an uncertain result long term.”

In responding to questions about the tower, engineers in charge of the project cast doubt on the reliability of the rooftop-based data they had cited when they declared some early success.

The engineers have relied on two types of measurement to determine lean. One reflects rooftop measurements, the other, foundation-based determinations.

Back in January, fix engineer Ron Hamburger pointed to rooftop-based monitoring data as reflecting early success with the reversal of some of the tower’s western tilt following the transfer of the some of the tower’s load onto piles along Mission Street to the northwest corner.

But in recent weeks, the rooftop data is reflecting the loss of the improvement and a trend of worsening tilt. As a result, the tower is now leaning about a half-inch more to the west than before it was first supported along Mission.

In a statement, Hamburger indicated that the rooftop data is prone to weather fluctuations. He pointed to foundation-based data as being more reliable.

Foundation-based monitoring data fluctuated less when the tower was partly transferred to six piles in January.

It currently shows the tower is tilting more than ever to the west, but only by about a quarter of an inch. Hamburger said he considers that amount of added tilt “negligible.”

“We are fully confident that following transfer of the remaining design load to the piles,’’ Hamburger told us in a statement, “there will be no further …. movement of the roof to the west.”

But Pyke says the monitoring data proves the tower is once again defying fix engineers’ expectations. At the moment, Pyke says, there’s no way to know if the tower will work as hoped and stop tilting after some of the load is shifted to piles rooted to bedrock on the west side.

“The design team has always claimed that there is going to be some rebound after they connect the perimeter piles,” Pyke said. “So far the evidence seems to suggest that’s not going to happen.”

The tilting trend comes as fix engineers are moving forward with securing the foundation to the dozen piles sunk along Fremont Street. The plan is to have the building load partly shifted to those piles in a matter of days.

“It is disheartening to hear that Sutter has walked back that commitment to transparency,” said Lisa Holder, president of the Equal Justice Society, an Oakland-based nonprofit focused on advocacy, education, and litigation to end discrimination. 

Holder, a long-time civil rights attorney and a Gov. Gavin Newsom appointee to California’s Reparations Task Force, has never filed suit against Sutter Health, but her nonprofit has taken on unrelated cases with a law firm that is currently suing Sutter for racial discrimination on behalf of a Black physician.

“In order to commit to creating a more inclusive institution, you must commit to creating a more compassionate and transparent institution,” Holder said.

Sutter Health is the third largest hospital system in California with more than 20 hospitals, 12,000 physicians, and 3 million patients.

Watch these related stories

SUTTER HEALTH Apr 14

‘A Black Doctor Like Me Was Expendable': Lawsuit Alleges Racism ‘Permeates' Sutter Health

SUTTER HEALTH May 12

‘How Does This Happen to All of Us?': Black Doctors Allege Discrimination at Sutter Health

Over the past two months, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has reported on nearly a dozen current and former Sutter Health doctors who said they were treated poorly by leadership at the hospital system because they are Black. The accounts come from four physicians interviewed by the Investigative Unit as well as seven other Black doctors who anonymously outlined their claims in a pending racial discrimination lawsuit against Sutter Health.

“There was a toxic environment that just permeated,” said Dr. Yinka Davies, a pediatric gastroenterologist who spent more than 10 years practicing at Sutter Health’s flagship hospital in Sacramento.  “I’d never experienced anything like this.”

Davies was one of a trio of physicians recently profiled by the Investigative Unit.  She, along with Dr. Kevin Smothers and Dr. Pringl Miller, joined Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban for a group interview where the physicians, who had never met one another prior, recounted experiences of discrimination during their tenures at Sutter.  Between them, they said they were bullied, harassed, and humiliated – impacting their mental health, pay, and patients.

“If underrepresented docs – Black doctors – are being structurally eliminated from the workforce, that means that it’s going to impact the communities that they serve,” Miller said. “We know that there’s health care disparities based on race and the community ripple effect is not insignificant.”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Three days after their joint interview aired on NBC Bay Area, Thomas sent Sutter’s board of directors a letter saying he was “personally disturbed by the discrimination claims” and vowed to take “several immediate actions.”

In the letter, dated May 15, Thomas pledged to hire a consultant to work alongside him on the reform effort, create a diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) council for physicians, and review internal training and hiring practices. 

Thomas also vowed to invite Davies, Smothers, and Miller to meet with him personally. While Davies and Smothers say they’ve since been contacted by Thomas to schedule the meeting, Miller says she has yet to receive any type of communication from Thomas or anyone else at Sutter regarding such a meeting.

The long list of promises in Thomas’s letter also included a vow to “engage in media requests.” 

Throughout NBC Bay Area’s reporting, Sutter, repeatedly, declined to be interviewed about the discrimination claims.

After Thomas sent his letter to Sutter’s board of directors, the Investigative Unit, once again, requested an interview with him.  Thomas’s staff then said he “is willing to be interviewed” and promised to schedule it.

That was three weeks ago.

Despite the Investigative Unit’s repeated attempts to follow up, Sutter has yet to schedule an interview. Instead, a spokesperson for the hospital system provided a statement, which appeared to veer away from Thomas’s earlier promises of engaging with journalists about his reform plans.

“We welcome the opportunity to talk about our progress in the future,” the statement noted.  “But given Sutter’s immediate focus on continued advancement of our [diversity, equity, inclusion] priorities, we are prioritizing implementation over interviews at this time.” 

“It’s a complete oxymoron,” Holder said.  “It makes absolutely no sense.  Part of their strategic plan should be to be very public facing and to be talking to the media about the changes that they’re making and their genuine commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”  

Watch our entire investigative series

• Part 1: Lawsuit alleges racism ‘permeates’ Sutter Health
• Part 2: Black doctors allege discrimination at Sutter Health
• Part 3: Sutter CEO ‘disturbed’ by discrimination claims in NBC Bay Area report, orders reforms
• Part 4: Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban discusses discrimination claims against Sutter
• Part 5: Black doctors accuse Sutter of discrimination, CEO’s response met with skepticism

Contact The Investigative Unit

Follow @BigadShaban

submit tips | 1-888-996-TIPS | e-mail Bigad

According to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which oversees the high school, Jonathan Chavez has resigned from his teaching position after the allegations surfaced. The claims comes just weeks before Chavez was scheduled to chaperone up to 20 high school students on a religious youth trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Chavez also ran the high school’s Guardsman’s Club, which the Archdiocese said revolves around faith and spirituality.

“That’s really frightening. It’s classic behavior by predators. They seek opportunities to be alone and influence these kids,” said Dan McNevin with SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Chavez is not a priest but McNevin says lay church employees and volunteers have also put children at risk in the past.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco told NBC Bay Area plans for the religious youth trip were cancelled due to insufficient sign-ups before allegations about Chavez surfaced.

The alleged inappropriate behavior allegedly happened while Chavez, an adult, was volunteering as an altar server at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Oakland, Oakland Diocese officials said. Chavez reportedly sent the texts to another Oakland altar server, who’s underaged, and the child’s parents alerted police and a priest at the parish on April 19.

The Diocese of Oakland said the priest made a mandatory child abuse report to the State. Approximately one or two days later, Chavez was informed he was not permitted to serve as a volunteer at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church or any other parish in the Diocese of Oakland. Oakland church officials said, on April 21, parents of altar servers at that parish were informed and all other parishioners were notified the weekend of May 13-14.

The Diocese of Oakland said it notified Chavez’s employer, Marin Catholic High School, on April 19. But it wouldn’t be for another month and a half after learning about the allegations and getting questions from the Investigative Unit that the Archdiocese of San Francisco would alert Marin Catholic High School parents and teachers specifically about the allegations against Chavez.

In earlier notifications in May, the Archdiocese said it told parents Chavez left for personal reasons and then resigned from his teaching position. Chavez was hired on August 1, 2021.

“One of the great flaws in this process is that there’s no list anywhere that identifies the lay employees who have offended or who are suspected of offending,” said McNevin.

In a June 6 letter addressed to “MC [Marin Catholic] Community,” Executive Director of Communications and Media Relations Peter Marlow wrote “The Archdiocese of San Francisco is now able to share more information regarding former MC teacher Jonathan Chavez.” The letter acknowledged the specific allegations and said Chavez was put on administrative leave the same day the Archdiocese was notified, back in April. The Archdiocese said Marin Catholic started its own investigation which has been completed “…without any local findings. To date Mr. Chavez has admitted no fault in the matter.”

The Investigative Unit contacted Chavez directly. He didn’t want to speak with us, and through his attorney reiterated he had no comment.

While Marlow instructed anyone with questions about the case to contact the Archdiocese, McNevin argues anyone with information about Chavez or another potential victim should first contact law enforcement.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco provided the following additional information on June 8.

“Upon learning of the allegations against Mr. Chavez, Marin Catholic administration immediately placed Mr. Chavez on administrative leave the same day, notified the Sheriff’s department the same day, and initiated an investigation related to the safety of the students, which was completed without any local findings. In other words, there was no evidence of inappropriate texting by Mr. Chavez to any Marin Catholic student.  The allegation that Mr. Chavez engaged in inappropriate texting with a minor was associated with a Church in Oakland.

Marin Catholic students were notified the next day that Mr. Chavez would not be teaching in their classes and that substitute teachers would be filling in. During this time period, the Marin Catholic community was also dealing with the death of a member of their community and were providing communications and counseling related to this tragedy.”

Candice Nguyen was the investigative reporter on this story. If you want to reach out to her about this case or another story tip, email candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.

That reported maintenance logjam is especially troubling to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, whose office prosecuted PG&E in the Camp Fire. The 2018 fire – blamed on PG&E’s failure to maintain its aging system — destroyed the town of Paradise and left 85 people dead.

Five years later, Ramsey worries about the languishing maintenance, especially with all the added fuel from an unusually wet winter.   

“I’ve seen the grass at this time of year twice as high and the brush …. has just exploded,” Ramsey said. “That means a very concerning fire year.”

But in a recent call to investors last month, PG&E’s CEO Patti Poppe touted the utility’s extensive fire mitigation efforts as grounds for optimism. She said PG&E’s strategy of cutting power immediately at the first sign of trouble helped reduce its fire risk by more than 90%.

“It gives me a lot of confidence heading into wildfire season that we are prepared,” Poppe said in the May 4 earnings call. Restoring shareholder dividends, she said, will help obtain low cost financing needed to build on the progress.

PG&E May 31

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PG&E May 31

PG&E Begins Power Line Inspections as Wildfire Season Looms

But a skeptical Ramsey points to the findings of the state regulator-appointed monitor’s report, in April, by Filsinger Energy Partners, which highlights PG&E’s current backlog of 170,000 outstanding “maintenance tags” in high fire areas.

“A ‘maintenance tag’ is an identification that something out of the normal has been found,” explained Dan Mulkey, a retired senior consulting electrical engineer at PG&E who is now a consultant.  

He says a utility must have detailed asset information to determine how quickly to make repairs on power poles and other vital components. “How dangerous is it?” he said, “That depends, mostly on the weather and how old it is.”

But according to the monitor, PG&E lacks precise age data on more than half of its lines. And its aging power poles account for half the company’s maintenance backlog.

Currently, the company is only replacing about half its goal of poles annually and only about 40 miles of its aging lines, the report noted. It’s target is 800 miles.   

PG&E officials recently signaled to the monitor that the task is daunting.

“The magnitude of capital needed for asset replacement programs,”  the report quotes unnamed PG&E managers as saying, “was far in excess of the amount of capital believed to be available.”

In a statement, PG&E says it continues to “aggressively work to reduce the backlog”  while “continually removing more ignition risk from the highest wildfire risk areas in our system.”

Reducing the backlog, the utility says, along with keeping up addressing new issues, will help make more progress reducing fire risks.

But Ramsey said in a recent interview that he is far from satisfied.

“PG&E needs to step up their game,” he said, adding that he regularly talks to company officials about both the progress achieved and the challenges remaining. Based on what he has seen this year, he says, PG&E still has not done enough to justify paying dividends.

“We’ve warned them —  they’ve got the warning,’’ Ramsey said, “and they need to approach it like their hair is on fire.”

Ken Hong Wong, 58, retired from his parole officer position in 2015.  He’s now accused of bribing former Public Works director Mohammed Nuru with four separate $5,000 payments over an eight month period.

Federal prosecutors allege Wong gave Nuru the money between December 2018 and July 2019 to secure Nuru’s influence and help hire someone seeking a public works engineering job.

Wong could face as much as 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines if convicted.

Mohammed Nuru Aug 25, 2022

Former San Francisco Public Works Head Mohammed Nuru Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison

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Key Figure Admits to ‘Staggering' Corruption in SF City Hall Scandal

Nuru is currently serving seven years in federal prison as part of a probe into San Francisco’s Public Works Department that has resulted in charges against 16 defendants, so far.

Steve Gruel, Wong’s attorney, said his client was simply a “go-between” in the case.  He says Wong has known Nuru for years because he ran a work program to assimilate parolees into the community and help clean up the Tenderloin and Chinatown areas.  

Wong was approached by an unnamed intermediary, according to Gruel, who was apparently working on behalf of a woman seeking a public works engineering job.

Federal documents filed in the Nuru case contend he had acknowledged accepting $20,000 to help an unidentified job seeker.

Wong, his attorney said, gave Nuru the money he got from the intermediary on behalf of the job-seeker.

“He made a poor exercise in judgment,” Gruel said of Wong’s role.  “He was clearly part of the conspiracy, but he was a very low-level player.”

Gruel said while the female job-seeker in the case did get hired for the post, the person left the department within weeks.

He said his client was informed by the FBI that he would be charged and was formally arraigned Tuesday. He entered a not-guilty plea to bribery and corruption counts and was ordered released on $20,000 bond.  

“Ken Wong has an arm’s length list of accolades – as a state parole officer and community work in San Francisco,” Gruel said. “He had this long career, yet it has this blemish – an exercise in poor judgment that he will admit to the government, with the hope a fair sentence will not include incarceration.”

“Our [AAPI] community doesn’t know how to respond and we don’t talk about it,” said Monica Khant, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence.  “There needs to be that intent and thoughtful focus on serving survivors from the communities that they come from because if you lose that, then you’re not really responding to their needs and some of the challenges that they face.”

Khant, a former immigration attorney who represented asylum seekers, has helped hundreds of sexual violence survivors over the past two decades.

“For many years, gender-based violence in the AAPI community has been guided by not talking about it because of shame, because of isolation, because of the impact that it would have had on their families,” she said.  “There’s a strong sense of family honor, with that comes family shame.”

One in six AAPI women in the U.S. reports being raped in her lifetime, while one in five report suffering any kind of sexual violence, according to surveys conducted by the CDC.  The prevalence of rape against AAPI women has increased 8 percent since 2017.

‘Why Me?’

“I want other young Asian-American women to know that there are others out there,” said Irene Cho, 48, a sexual violence survivor who says she was raped by one of the pastors of her church when she was 19-years-old.  “Back then, I didn’t value who I was — I didn’t know the worth of all of who I am.”

Cho, who lives in Oakland, is a California native, but her family immigrated from South Korea and taught her to revere her elders, especially those in the church.

“There are parts of my culture that I absolutely cherish and love,” Cho said.  “Being part of the AAPI community, I do cherish how we respect our elders, but I do not cherish how that is used to manipulate young people to simply obey without question.”

Cho believes her abuser used her own cultural upbringing as a weapon to victimize and prey upon her.

“I didn’t want to bring shame upon him, which is so stupid,” she said.  “Now, as I look back –and I don’t mean that insulting me or degrading me, but I, again, wish I could shake my young person to say, ‘you matter more than he does. Your dignity matters.”

Cho says she waited more than a decade before publicly sharing her story of abuse.

“The questions of why began,” she said. “Why? Why me?”

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Rise in anti-Asian Hate Met with Waves of Support

In California, hate crimes against Asian Americans increased by more than 177 percent in 2021, according to a report from the California Attorney General’s Office released last year. While the pandemic gave rise to racist hate speech and violent attacks against Asians, that extremism also spurred communities, nationwide, to speak up and stand alongside Asian Americans.  Advocates believe those efforts, paired with the ongoing #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements, have recently given some victims the courage to come forward and seek the care and services they need.

The Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco received more than 2,000 requests last year from survivors and their children to join local support groups.

Also last year, Korean American Family Services, commonly known as KFAM, received 50 percent more requests from survivors seeking support.

The Sikh Family Center, which operates nationwide, says calls to its sexual violence crisis hotline spiked 160 percent in just two years.

AAPI Survivors Often Lumped Together Despite Varying Cultural and Ethnic Backgrounds

While Khant acknowledges the issue of sexual violence is now being discussed more frequently, she says it is still not brought up nearly enough.  She says part of the difficulty in understanding the impact of sexual violence is AAPI survivors are often all lumped together into a group comprised of roughly 50 counties and more than 100 languages. 

“So when you create a perception with broad strokes, you’re missing some of the nuances happening,” Khant said.  “You’re only talking about part of the story and really erasing the rest of it.

For example, domestic abuse rates in the U.S. for Chinese and Japanese victims are fairly similar, however, rates for Korean, Indian, and Filipino, and Vietnamese survivors are roughly double.

Khant adds that even when data is available, it may still be incomplete since culturally, AAPI survivors may be particularly hesitant to share their stories.

“That also contributes to just not knowing when this happens in our communities,” she said.  “When people are not speaking up or speaking out about the violence in our community that has happened, that data point is skewed.”

The nonprofit Freely in Hope works to empower survivors of sexual violence by providing them education and counseling.  The work is focused in Kenya and Zambia and was started by Nikole Lim, a San Francisco Bay Area native, who first witnessed the impact of sexual violence as a documentary filmmaker abroad.  She eventually decided to put down her camera in hopes of capturing real change.

“What I’ve experienced in my context of working in Africa is survivors are coming together to create their own communities of belonging, where they know that they’re not alone,” she said.  “There are similarities in the stories of pain, as there are similarities in the stories of healing and when those healing stories can be shared, I think that’s how survivors can move forward together.”

On June 17, sexual violence survivors and advocates, including Lim and Cho, will take part in ‘Redeeming Sanctuaries,’ a panel discussion in San Francisco centering around abuse in the church and what church leaders should be doing to prevent it.  Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban, who is a volunteer board member of Freely in Hope, will moderate the discussion.  Click here to learn how to reserve tickets.

In her book, ‘Liberation is Here,’ Lim recounts what she’s learned after spending more than a decade walking alongside sexual violence survivors in Africa.  As a third-generation Chinese American, she says the experience has pushed her to explore her own cultural upbringing.

“One of the priorities for Asian communities is …we are very communal, but often our community is based on what brings shame and what brings honor, which doesn’t always expose truths,” Lim said.  “I think I think that’s the gift of storytelling when we can tell our stories from our own nuanced perspective – that’s where healing can begin.”

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submit tips | 1-888-996-TIPS | e-mail Bigad

The suspect has been identified by police as Fook Poy Lai, who is suspected of stabbing a worker at The AA Bakery & Cafe on Monday. Court records dating back to 1999 show at least six cases against him that range from vandalism to attempted murder.

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In 1999, the records show Lai was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and battery causing serious injuries. He pled guilty to the assault charges and was sentenced to more than 200 days in jail.

In 2005, Lai was arrested for misdemeanor vandalism. The case was later dismissed.

A year later, he faced another assault with a deadly weapon charge, as well as a charge for seriously injuring an elderly person. Lai pled guilty to elder abuse and was sentenced to eight months.

In 2007, there was another arrest for assault with a deadly weapon and another elder abuse. On top of that, Lai was charged with two counts of battery on a peace officer. All charges were dismissed, according to court records.

In 2013, Lai pled guilty to a misdemeanor vandalism charge.

In 2016, his most recent arrest before Monday’s stabbing at the Chinatown bakery, Lai was charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, battery, and elder abuse. He pled guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to nine years in prison, where about two years were subtracted for time already served before his trial.

Lai is now in jail again after The AA Bakery & Cafe stabbing after being arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide.

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit is still waiting for the full files on his previous cases.

“You say you’re Catholic, and then you wonder what that person who’s looking back at you is thinking,” parishioner Toni Wilkerson said about the ongoing scandal.

While they didn’t agree on everything, one common theme emerged from the discussion: The desire for more transparency and dialogue from church leaders. 

“There’ve been so many [abuse] cases, but I’ve never been at a church where they openly discussed this,” Isabel Rajan said.

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But that hasn’t stopped these 10 parishioners from Church of the Transfiguration in Castro Valley from having these difficult discussions amongst themselves.

Many in the group said the scandal has been deeply harmful, but none have given serious thought to leaving the church.

“I haven’t considered leaving,” Peggy Maurer said. “But what I do feel is shame and embarrassment sometimes to admit that I’m Catholic and I hate that feeling.”

Some feared for the church’s future.

“I have a 23-year-old daughter who has no interest, she does not feel comfortable in the Catholic church right now,” Mel Speed said. “It’s literally in self-destruct mode now. You look around the congregation and it’s very rare to see younger people in the church.”

The parishioners said it will take time to heal the wounds caused by the scandal, but they see themselves as part of the solution. 

“If you love something and it’s broken, you want to fix it,” Wilkerson said. “I’m not going to leave something that’s broken. I’m going to stick around and fix it.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Oakland said it recognizes that parishioners want more conversations about sexual abuse within the church, adding that anyone interested should contact their pastor directly.

Watch the video above for more from the conversation.

Turns out she was wrong. 

The following year, in 2003, former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada declared Lacampagne’s allegations to be “unfounded.” Carter was returned to ministry and continued to work as a priest over the ensuing two decades.

Now, all these years after Lacampagne’s original accusations, six new alleged victims, both men and women, have come forward about Carter. They accuse the longtime priest in separate lawsuits of sexually abusing them as children at different moments in his career, between the 1970s and 2000.

“I stand with them,” Lacampagne said. “I’m very proud of whoever it is that’s coming forward. When I came forward, it was very difficult to do alone. So I’m happy to be here and talk about it. They are not alone.”

The findings come amid an ongoing NBC Bay Area investigation into a wave of new lawsuits hitting the Catholic church across California, made possible by the 2019 Child Victims Act, which temporarily did away with the civil statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases for a three-year period between 2020 and 2022. More than 1,500 lawsuits were filed against Catholic institutions in Northern California alone.

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A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which employs Carter, declined to comment on his current status as a priest, but videos posted to YouTube show Carter serving at San Francisco’s St. Paul of the Shipwreck as recently as 2021. 

“The Archdiocese will be handling lawsuits brought against it via the appropriate legal channels and will not make any comment to the media related to active litigation,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to NBC Bay Area.

Carter’s name appears to be absent from a current list of priests in good standing with the Archdiocese who are allowed to minister.

NBC Bay Area was able to reach Carter by phone, but the priest declined an interview request. 

“[Carter], who at the time these new lawsuits were filed, was still in ministry in present day,” said Mike Reck, an attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm representing two of Carter’s new accusers. “And that’s what is really, really shocking.”

The six new plaintiffs have filed their lawsuits under pseudonyms and NBC Bay Area has not interviewed them directly. But the legal filings lay out some of their claims.

One of the new lawsuits alleges Carter repeatedly fondled an eight-year-old girl attending a San Francisco Catholic school in 1981. A second plaintiff alleges the priest did similar things to her around the same time. The abuse described in those cases closely mirrors Lacampagne’s own account.

“He was very charismatic,” Lacampagne said. “He was very loud, he was a little bit strict. He was a big presence at the school.”

At the time, Carter worked at Ecole Notre Dame des Victoires, the Catholic grammar school in San Francisco that Lacampagne attended as a child. She said the priest forged a bond with her entire family that transcended the school’s walls.

“My family was fairly Catholic and he became good friends with my father,” Lacampagne said. “I really liked him. He took a liking to me, which wasn’t really a common experience for me as a child.”

But one night in the late 1970s, while the priest was at their home for dinner, Lacampagne said Carter turned from a trusted family friend to her abuser. She was eight years old.

“I was saying goodnight to him and my parents were actually in the other room,” she said. “I was wearing my pajamas and he took his hand and he put it up my pajama shirt and felt my chest area. And then he took his hand and put it down my pajama pants and felt my bottom area and vagina area.”

“I was shocked, I was confused,” Lacampagne said. “At eight you’re not really taught that much about sexuality in a Catholic school. So it’s very confusing, but I knew it was wrong.”

She carried the secret for decades, until 2002, when the clergy sex scandal in Boston was exploding and alleged victims were coming forward across the country. 

Lacampagne had become a social worker in Redwood City and said the time felt right to come forward. Especially, she said, since Carter was still working as a priest for the Archdiocese, at Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Belmont.

“As a social worker, I knew all along, for years, that it’s risky not to come forward,” Lacampagne said. “You do it because of the safety of children, because he’s still a priest out there.”

In April 2002, Lacampagne said she reported her abuse directly to the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Later that month, she filed a police report accusing Carter of molesting her as a child. Soon after that, she filed a lawsuit.

Carter was temporarily placed on leave by Archbishop Levada and the church would go on to settle Lacampagne’s lawsuit without an admission of guilt.

But that didn’t spell the end of Carter’s days in ministry. In March of the following year, Levada wrote a letter to Carter, informing the priest the Archdiocese had “reviewed the allegations of sexual abuse of a minor” and “have judged these allegations to be unfounded.” Levada put Carter back to work. 

“The Father Carter story, I think, is one of the most shameful for the Archdiocese of San Francisco,” said attorney Rick Simons, who represented Lacampagne in her lawsuit. “The Archdiocese claimed they were going to do an independent review. They did an independent review, but the only thing it was really independent of was the facts.”

Reck agreed, saying the Carter story illustrates why the public should be leery of the church’s internal review process, regardless of the outcomes of the new cases.

“This is an institution that has shown us time and time again that it cannot be trusted to self-police itself,” Reck said.

Lacampagne said she’s sharing her story now, so Carter’s new accusers know she’s in their corner. She can still feel the backlash she experienced when she came forward back in 2002.

“It weighs on you,” she said. “I didn’t want to come forward. It’s not a great thing for my family and my job. But at some point, you have to weigh the safety of children.”

Madison Fishman contributed reporting to this story.

Sutter Health, one of California’s largest medical providers with more than 3 million patients, is taking action just days after an NBC Bay Area investigative report exposed racial discrimination allegations inside Sutter’s hospitals and clinics across Northern California.  Nearly a dozen Black physicians, comprised of current and former Sutter employees, have accused the medical provider of engaging in discriminatory practices over the past two decades. Between them, they say the racial discrimination they suffered has resulted in loss of pay, demotions, and hostile work environments for Black doctors.

Warner Thomas, Sutter Health’s president and CEO, is now promising major reforms to combat discrimination inside the hospital system’s training and recruitment processes.  On Monday, he outlined his plans in an e-mail sent to Sutter’s Board of Directors, which is comprised of Thomas and 12 other members.

“I am personally disturbed by the discrimination claims made by three Sutter affiliated physicians in a local Bay Area NBC story,” Thomas wrote. “Our response to this will not be defensive, instead we will use this situation as a catalyst for a different level of energy and urgency around this work and a much broader, more holistic, more comprehensive approach.”

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By Tuesday, the letter had already been forwarded to individuals outside of Sutter’s Board of Directors and continues to be circulated amongst physicians within the medical group, which stretches across more than 20 hospitals in Northern California.

Of the more than 30 medical systems across California, Sutter Health is the third largest based on the number of hospitals (including acute-care, rehabilitation, and behavioral health facilities), according to data the Investigative Unit obtained from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI). The only California systems larger than Sutter are Dignity Health and Kaiser Hospitals.

Over the last month, the Investigative Unit broadcast a pair of reports that collectively highlighted stories from nearly a dozen current and former black physicians at Sutter, who accuse the medical group of discrimination.  The most recent investigation, which aired last week, centered around a trio of Black physicians who claim Sutter leaders bullied, harassed, and humiliated them because of the color of their skin. 

Thomas’s letter, which details “several immediate actions” he hopes to take this week, was emailed just three days after the latest NBC Bay Area story aired.

“We must move faster and more visibly demonstrate efforts to create a more inclusive culture,” Thomas wrote. “We take any claims of discrimination very seriously and are digging in to better understand these physicians’ feedback, including inviting them to meet with me directly.” 

While Thomas’s letter references the three Sutter physicians featured in NBC Bay Area’s most recent investigation, it makes no mention of Dr. Omondi Nyong’o, an internationally recognized pediatric ophthalmologist who was profiled in an NBC Bay Area report last month. Nyong’o, who still practices at a Sutter Health facility in Palo Alto and has more than a decade of work experience with the medical group, filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Sutter Health in 2021. The litigation, which is still pending, also includes discrimination claims from seven other anonymous Black physicians.

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

Thomas has only been at the helm of Sutter Health since December of last year.  He previously spent a decade as president and CEO of Ochsner Health, Louisiana’s largest healthcare provider.

Thomas is now promising to fast-track the hiring of a new Chief Diversity Officer for Sutter, a first-of-its-kind position for the medical group, and also vowed to speak with reporters about his ongoing efforts to combat discrimination.

“We will engage in media requests when contacted while also getting this message out more publicly, proactively, and transparently.”

Thomas has previously declined to be interviewed as part of NBC Bay Area’s recent reporting, however, on Thursday his office said Thomas is now willing to speak with the Investigative Unit and is in the process of scheduling the interview.

“There are many positive things going on across the organization,” Thomas wrote.  “Now is the time to bring this conversation front and center, to learn, and to do better.”

Sutter’s CEO Sent This Letter to his Board of Directors in Response to Discrimination Allegations From Black Physicians:

Since my first day as CEO, I have talked about how embracing diversity, equity and inclusion is a critical priority of mine.  We have the unique privilege of serving one of the most diverse patient populations in the country, and we must move faster and more visibly demonstrate efforts to create a more inclusive culture. One that fosters an environment of trust and respect for our colleagues, patients, and communities.

I am personally disturbed by the discrimination claims made by three Sutter affiliated physicians in a local Bay Area NBC story that aired Friday night, and assure you that we take any claims of discrimination very seriously and are digging in to better understand these physicians’ feedback, including inviting them to meet with me directly.

Our response to this will not be defensive, instead we will use this situation as a catalyst for a different level of energy and urgency around this work and a much broader, more holistic, more comprehensive approach. I will begin work right away with our DEI Committee Board members and other expert resources, to guide and inform our robust DEI plan and approach over the next 30-45 days.

While that multi-phase plan is in development, we are taking several immediate actions starting this week:

• We will bring in an expert external consultant or firm to work directly with me as we inform and build the plan, and assess activities, policies, and the structure in place today to align them with the impact we want to have. (This will be in parallel to successfully completing our fast-tracked, national search for a Chief Diversity Officer.)

• We will evaluate the membership and charter of our DEI Strategy Group and reform and expand it to become a System DEI Council. Working closely with the medical groups, independent physicians, and medical staffs, we will also form an additional DEI Council specifically for physicians, one for APCs and one for leaders. All of these councils will have specific charters, responsibilities, and execution plans.

• We will hold dedicated listening sessions and forums broadly and at every level with diverse physicians, clinicians, and staff across the organization to better understand their workplace experience, what is working and where we can improve.

• We will take the learnings from all of these listening sessions, and input from the Board and others, and evolve the structure and influence of our IRGS and local inclusion councils. Part of this evaluation will be to look at what IRGS are needed and how to further operationalize and support the IRGS and Inclusion Councils un (sic) a more systematic way.

• We will review our internal training, hiring approach and practices and set a path toward making measurable strides in how we build the right capabilities and environment while also attracting and hiring more diverse physician and leader candidates. As part of this we will set a target for improvement relatively quickly and we will share this with you, and more broadly across the organization.

• We will accelerate our work to continue to build a diverse pipeline in our residency and Graduate Medical Educations (sic) programs.

• We will build a dynamic internal and external communications plan to increase visibility around the importance of this work, and we will engage in media requests when contacted while also getting this message out more publicly, proactively, and transparently.

There are many positive things going on across the organization and now is the time to bring this conversation front and center, to learn, and to do better. I will share more details around progress on the above actions and the more holistic planning process within the week.

I will also continue to keep the board informed as this story progresses. We will work directly with the SH Board DEI Committee to vet our planning activities and progress and commit to report the more detailed holistic Sutter DEI Plan at or before our August Board meeting. I appreciate your continued support and guidance and as always, please feel free to call me with any thoughts, questions, or concerns.

Warner

Watch our entire investigative series

• Part 1: Lawsuit alleges racism ‘permeates’ Sutter Health
• Part 2: Black doctors allege discrimination at Sutter Health
• Part 3: Sutter CEO ‘disturbed’ by discrimination claims in NBC Bay Area report, orders reforms
• Part 4: Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban discusses discrimination claims against Sutter
• Part 5: Black doctors accuse Sutter of discrimination, CEO’s response met with skepticism

Contact The Investigative Unit

Follow @BigadShaban

submit tips | 1-888-996-TIPS | e-mail Bigad

The South Bay transit agency says “ongoing personnel action” is underway against Aaron Terry who did not return to work after the incident.

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit recently obtained surveillance video of the assault through a public records request. It shows Terry at the wheel of VTA bus #8331 early in the morning on July 25, 2022 driving southbound on El Camino Real in Mountain View. There are several passengers on board.

At 5:15 a.m., a man pulls on a chord above his seat to stop the bus. He proceeds to walk towards the front door near the driver.

The ambient bus noise in the video is loud, so it is hard to make out, but it seems the passenger tells Terry to pull over. Seconds later, Terry slows down by a bus stop.

The two men exchange words but the camera does not clearly pick up their conversation. The doors do not open for the passenger and Terry keeps driving only to stop again down the street where there is no bus stop. This time the doors open and the man gets out.

Terry starts to drive off but quickly stops, again. With other riders on board, surveillance video show Terry get out of his own bus to go after the passenger. There is no audio but the cameras capture a brief face-to-face interaction on a sidewalk before Terry follows the man into the street.

Video shows the bus operator appear to square up, preparing to fight, all while the man is trying to back away from Terry into the middle of El Camino Real with a car passing by.

At 5:17 a.m., Terry lunges at the man, throws him down on the ground and kicks and hits him for approximately ten seconds. The man gets up and walks away while Terry returns to the bus where other passengers are watching through the front window.

“How come the driver didn’t let the passenger off and drive away?” said Eugene Bradley, CEO of Silicon Valley Transit Users. Bradley’s organization is a public transit advocacy and watchdog group that mostly monitors VTA. “I don’t care how stressed you are. We’re all under stress. Does not give you the excuse to leave a bus with passengers on it, to go get in an altercation with a passenger.”

When the Investigative Unit reached out to Aaron Terry, a family member responded saying “he has no comment and after 22 years, he’s no longer employed because of a belligerent drunk [who] affected him that day.”

A separate source close to VTA’s internal investigation told NBC Bay Area the passenger used racial slurs. The passenger’s identity is unclear.

“What the driver should have done at that point, [he] should have at least contacted his supervisor over VTA’s emergency services and let them know what was happening and at least get law enforcement involved,” Bradley said.

When asked if law enforcement was contacted, a VTA spokesperson declined to comment and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office said it has no report on file.

VTA declined an interview with the Investigative Unit and sent the following statement:

“VTA was made aware of the incident in question through a complaint to our Customer Service Department on July 25, 2022.  After VTA became aware of the incident, it took swift action and subsequently terminated the operator. Because this is an ongoing personnel action, VTA cannot release further information.”

Terry was terminated on August 19, 2022.

The Investigative Unit asked VTA if Terry faced disciplinary action in the past, but a spokesperson declined to answer and the agency’s records unit said the files are not releasable under the California Public Records Act. NBC Bay Area is pushing for the release of those files since VTA is a public agency and Terry is a public employee. VTA says it is planning to respond.

In a statement Vice President of ATU Local 265 John Pospishek said “The union does not condone the behavior in this case. We also ask for public support not to condone a culture of racial slurs, verbal assaults or physical assaults operators have to endure [on a] daily basis.”

Regulators had originally sought to fine the utility $155 million for two regulatory violations blamed in the fire that left four dead and destroyed more than 200 homes in Shasta and Tehama counties. The deal, as approved, will impose a $10 million fine and then specify that the $140 million balance be paid by shareholders to bolster record keeping and vegetation management in high fire risk areas.

The company is still facing criminal prosecution in Shasta County for the Sept. 27, 2020 fire.

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CPUC Regulators alleged the tree that leaned onto the line, triggering the fire, had been earmarked for removal but wasn’t removed due to PG&E’s poor recordkeeping.

PG&E disputed that interpretation and challenged the regulatory findings. The settlement does not resolve the dispute, but does require PG&E to better track trees to ensure those marked for removal are identified by a signed and dated record that includes precise geographic data. The $140 million settlement will also pay for more training, improved data management and investments in local fire safety councils and other fire education efforts.

In a statement, PG&E says it’s “a different company today” under CEO Patti Poppe, and outlined various initiatives during her tenure, including reconfiguring its equipment and a ten year plan to underground 10,000 miles of its power lines. The company says it is “working tirelessly to make our system safer every day.”

As for the specifics surrounding the fire, PG&E says it has accepted Cal Fire’s finding that a tree which fell onto its power line was the cause of the Zogg fire, and has resolved many of the civil claims.

“This settlement agreement allows us to continue focusing our time, resources and efforts to continue to make our system safer now, rather than on a hearing related to events several years ago,” the utility said. “Our objective is to focus on continuing to make things better for our communities.”

At the time of the Feb. 15, 2020 confrontation at the El Cerrito del Norte station, Cyrus Greene was 17. He admits he was armed and on juvenile probation for a gun and theft case at the time, but now insists he is a different person.

“I do think about it a lot every day,” Greene, now 20, said in an interview, “Because it’s changed my life.”

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has obtained the officer-worn body camera footage of the  incident that began before 2 p.m. on a Saturday.

Greene was shot multiple times by a pair of pursuing BART officers who had chased him through the station. The video shows the officers pursuing Greene, with guns drawn, as he jumps onto the tracks. The officers soon fire after Greene comes back to retrieve the handgun that fell out of his pants.

He spent seven months in the hospital and underwent three surgeries for wounds to his head and body. He was left with nerve damage and only limited use of his left arm and hand. He also has a bullet still lodged in his jaw.

The officers who came to the station that day, dispatch recordings show, were responding to a report by a passenger that a man on the train had displayed a gun in his waistband during a heated argument with a woman on the train.

Soon after arriving, video shows, the two responding officers spot Greene on the stopped train. He soon starts running down the aisle. “Let me see your hands!” one officer shouts to him.

One of the officers chases Greene inside the train, shouting: “Stop right there!”

As one of the officers pursues him in the train, the other runs alongside, down the platform, warning at one point: “You’re going to get shot!”

Greene keeps running out of the train and then jumps down onto the tracks. It’s the moment as he quickly turns back to grab the gun that fell out of his pants that the lead officer pursuing him shouts again: “Hey, You’re going to get shot!” That officer fired first, followed by the second officer.

The BART police chief at the time, Ed Alvarez, gave a statement the afternoon of the shooting saying, “officers got onto the platform, challenged that individual who ran off the train, down the platform and onto our trackway.  At this point a gun was produced and our officers ultimately shot.”

But Greene’s attorney Ben Nisenbaum argues the video shows that Greene didn’t actually “produce” the gun —  it simply fell out of his pants.

The video shows, he says, his client then picked up that weapon by the barrel, then turned around to resume running. The video shows that was the moment the officer shouted the warning about getting shot and opened fire.

Greene says while he shouldn’t have run from police that day, the officers didn’t have to shoot him.  

“I did pick it up,” Greene said about the gun he went back to get, “but…that’s not justifiable to shoot me. I didn’t point it at them or nothing like that. I was running when I was shot.” He asked how police could “feel endangered if I’m running away from you? That doesn’t make sense at all.”

Still, BART’s attorneys argued that the shooting was reasonable because of the imminent threat Greene posed at the moment he went back and grabbed the gun.

Nisenbaum said BART’s case fell apart, however, when officers reviewed a slowed down version of the bodycam video.

“All your shots were fired at Mr. Greene after he had picked the gun up and turned to run away from you, correct?” Nisenbaum asked the first officer who opened fire during a deposition. The officer simply replied: “correct.”

“Our view was that Cyrus did not threaten anybody with the gun,” Nisenbaum said. “He didn’t point the gun, did not take any action that was consistent with pointing the gun.”

Earlier this year, a judge in the case refused to grant BART’s motion to dismiss the case. Soon after that ruling, BART agreed to the $4.4 million settlement. The officers involved were not disciplined.

In a statement, BART said the officers were seeking to “lawfully arrest” Greene for an assault with a gun. Dispatch records show that the passenger reported in their call to authorities that Greene had displayed the gun in his waistband during the incident on the train.

“In fear for their safety and the safety of nearby patrons, two BART officers fired their weapons…” the agency said. “BART continues to deny wrongdoing but believes that the settlement is a fair resolution for all parties to the lawsuit.’’

Greene now spends his time raising his two year old daughter. He says he is relieved that the court case is over.

“I’m just glad that they finally had enough decency to own up to their wrongs,” Greene said, because “obviously, they were wrong…. I was just simply trying to get away.”

The physicians, Dr. Yinka Davies, Dr. Pringl Miller, and Dr. Kevin Smothers, worked at Sutter Health in different departments, during different time periods over the past 20 years, but are now sharing stories about the alleged discrimination they experienced throughout their careers within the company. 

The allegations come in the wake of a racial discrimination lawsuit targeting Sutter, filed by Dr. Omondi Nyong’o, a Black ophthalmologist who continues to work for Sutter Health’s Palo Alto Medical Foundation.  

SUTTER HEALTH May 12

Black Doctors Allege History of Discrimination at Sutter Health

SUTTER HEALTH Apr 14

‘A Black Doctor Like Me Was Expendable': Lawsuit Alleges Racism ‘Permeates' Sutter Health

Nyong’o’s suit alleges Sutter “disrespects, undermines, and disciplines African American staff and doctors” due to racial bias.  The suit also includes accounts of alleged racial bias from seven other anonymous Black doctors at Sutter. 

“It’s insidious here within Sutter,” said Smothers, who served as Chief Medical Officer for the Sutter Health hospital in Sacramento up until last year.

Smothers said, at the time, he was the only Black person holding that position at any Sutter hospital.

“There was a toxic environment that just permeated,” said Davies, a pediatric gastroenterologist who also worked for Sutter Health’s flagship hospital in Sacramento.

Davies left Sutter in 2013 after a 10-year career and started her own private practice. 

“All of a sudden you’re being told that you’re difficult to work with,” Davies said. “So-and-so thought you were yelling, or they were scared of you.”

Dr. Pringl Miller, who practiced as a general surgeon at Sutter Health’s campus in Novato for four years, between 2002 and 2006, said she also faced criticism over her perceived demeanor.

“Similar to Dr. Davies, I was labeled a ‘disruptive’ physician,” Miller said in a group interview with all three doctors. “If I was complaining about something that happened, like unsterile instruments on the back table, I became the problem.” 

Davies said she experienced similar treatment when advocating for patients or requesting services, like when she asked for an ultrasound on a patient before performing a liver biopsy.

“How does this happen?” Davies asked. “Like, how does this happen to all of us?”

A spokesperson for Sutter Health declined to comment on the accusations made by each doctor.

Last month, however, in response to NBC Bay Area’s reporting on Dr. Nyong’o’s lawsuit, a Sutter spokesperson said in a statement:

“We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce, as well as a healthcare environment where all are treated equitably, with dignity and respect, and provided the opportunity to reach their full potential…”

Dr. Kevin Smothers

Among the three physicians who spoke to NBC Bay Area, Smothers worked at Sutter most recently, leaving the company last year after he said he was passed over for promotion.

While serving as Chief Medical Officer, Smothers said his supervisor, the hospital’s CEO, told him he was being groomed to become the next CEO. Smothers, however, said that same boss later told him the plan was abruptly nixed by higher-ups at Sutter Health, and the job was given to a white woman.

“Someone who had never had any experience working in a large, complex system,” Smothers said. “It was clear to me that it had to be race that was determining why this person was put in that position.”

Sutter would not comment on Dr. Smothers’ allegations.

According to the lawsuit filed by Nyong’o, Black doctors account for less than 1% of physicians within the ranks of Sutter’s leadership, including CEOs, C-suite executives, and hundreds of other positions. Sutter declined to comment on the accuracy of those figures, nor would it release racial demographics for its 12,000 physicians.

“Although they claim to be the organization of diversity, equity, and inclusion, when you look at the face of Sutter, that’s not the case,” Smothers said.

Dr. Yinka Davies

During her 10 years at Sutter, Davies said she felt targeted by leadership at every step, but it was never about the quality of care she provided patients.

“All of that takes a toll on you,” Davies said. “It was never about your care, but always they would find little things to escalate to a completely different level.”

During her time at Sutter, Davies alleges one of her supervisors secretly had a hidden camera installed in her medical supply closet, which she said only five other employees regularly used.

She said a hospital maintenance worker, who told her about the camera’s existence, said he installed it while she was on vacation.

“He takes me into the administrator’s office, which is just around the corner, and next to her desk was a live feed of this camera,” Davies said. “This is Sutter. I don’t feel safe there.”

Davies left Sutter in 2013, but in the decade since, she believes the company has done little to curb discrimination based on Nyong’o’s lawsuit and accounts she’s heard from other doctors, she said. 

“It’s the same story being told over and over again,” Davies said.  “You know this isn’t isolated.”

Dr. Pringl Miller

On its website, Sutter Health boasts about its record of fostering equity, noting that it has an “unyielding commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

When asked about the quote, Miller said Sutter and the entire medical field still haven’t done enough to address discrimination towards underrepresented minorities. 

“I think what matters is how people feel they’ve been treated and not what they say they’re doing,” Miller said.

Miller says she was labeled “disruptive” by leadership for raising patient care concerns during her time as a surgeon at Sutter’s Novato hospital between 2002 and 2006. She also said she wasn’t afforded the same respect given to her colleagues. 

While white male surgeons were always called “doctor,” Miller said, hospital staff frequently called her by her first name. 

Miller said the repeated discrimination she’s suffered in the medical field is, in part, what inspired her to create Physician Just Equity, a nonprofit focused on providing support to doctors and medical students experiencing discrimination in the workplace.

In just two years, Miller said the group has received help requests from more than 100 physicians across the country.

“If underrepresented docs, black doctors, are being structurally eliminated from the workforce, that means that it’s going to impact the communities that they serve,” Miller said.

New research shows that a lack of representation in the medical field could be a matter of life and death. A recent study, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found when counties have more Black doctors, Black residents there tend to live longer.

“If you’re not really trying to become more diverse and inclusive, the patients feel it,” Davies said. “And that’s the bigger picture of this.”

Watch our entire investigative series

• Part 1: Lawsuit alleges racism ‘permeates’ Sutter Health
• Part 2: Black doctors allege discrimination at Sutter Health
• Part 3: Sutter CEO ‘disturbed’ by discrimination claims in NBC Bay Area report, orders reforms
• Part 4: Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban discusses discrimination claims against Sutter
• Part 5: Black doctors accuse Sutter of discrimination, CEO’s response met with skepticism

Contact The Investigative Unit

Follow @BigadShaban

submit tips | 1-888-996-TIPS | e-mail Bigad

DSS filed a legal action on April 27 to pull the license of Atria Walnut Creek, where one man died. According to the man’s coroner’s report, obtained by NBC Bay Area, the cause of death was: caustic injury to pharynx, esophagus and stomach, due to; ingestion of liquid cleaning agent.

The family of the victim, 94-year-old Constantine Albert Canoun, said Atria management initially blamed their father saying he ate Flaming Hot Cheetos and his hospitalization was food-related. Atria stood by that narrative for months, until the victim’s coroner’s report confirmed he died from ingested cleaning chemical.

DSS in March filed a legal action to pull the license of Atria Park of San Mateo after two people died and one person was injured after drinking industrial grade dishwasher liquid.

Both cases with the DSS are pending and Atria said it is appealing both.

“We disagree with the Department of Social Services’ decision and have filed a notice of contest to appeal that decision,” a spokesperson for Atria said Thursday about the Walnut Creek case. “We are committed to working with them to reach a resolution of that appeal. Atria Walnut Creek will remain open during this process. Our employees remain focused on providing a safe and welcoming environment for all our residents.”

Jason Montiel, a spokesperson for DSS, said that pending revocations may be appealed and may result in a revocation, probation, or it may be dismissed by a judge. The facilities may remain open during this process, which remains ongoing, he said.

INVESTIGATIVE Apr 18

Worker Charged With Manslaughter, Elder Abuse for Poisoning Deaths at Senior Home

Crime and Courts Jan 30

‘They're Using This Woman as a Scapegoat,' Atria Assisted Living Worker Accused in Resident's Death Appears in Court

Canoun lived in the memory care unit of the Walnut Creek facility and ingesting the all-purpose cleaning solution the night of Aug. 23. Around midnight Aug. 24, he was rushed to the hospital and died on Aug. 31.

Canoun had dementia, and DSS noted that, as such, a staff member should have been in his presence at all times and should have kept cleaning agents out of reach.

Somehow, Canoun had gotten his hands on a cleaning agent, the report said. Cleaning supplies were stored in the facility’s kitchen on the shelf underneath the kitchen counter, the state said.

A DSS investigation into his death dated April 18 on the department’s website found that Canoun had wandered into the facility’s dining room before midnight and was found sitting in a chair with a staff member’s lunch in front of him. The kitchen door had been left unlocked.

According to the report, “R1,” or Canoun, vomited and coughed up food, telling the staff member that he had been poisoned.

“Based on observation, interviews, and records review by the Department, it was determined that R1 was not adequately supervised, resulting in R1 being injured and expiring due to ingestion of a caustic cleaning agent,” reads the report.

The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office filed charges in January against an employee at the Walnut Creek facility.

Lateshia Sherise Starling, 54, of San Pablo, is facing one count of felony elder abuse resulting in the death of Canoun.

“Our hearts continue to be with the family and loved ones of the resident affected by this tragedy,” said Atria. “As always, we are committed to the safety, health, and well-being of all our residents.”

On Aug. 27, 2022, three people at the San Mateo facility drank dishwasher liquid, which was in a beverage pitcher left on a kitchen counter, according to an investigative report by DSS dated April 14. Two of them died and one was injured.

DSS said that the dishwasher soap had normally come to the San Mateo facility in 1-gallon containers, but that “weeks prior” to the poisonings, management had been ordering 5-gallon containers. Employees would pour the liquid into a beverage pitcher to then pour into the dishwashing machine, which holds 1 gallon.

The state found that an employee left the full beverage pitcher on the kitchen counter next to the sink, noting that no staff member had labeled it as cleaner. A staff member subsequently picked up the pitcher and poured its contents into three glasses, thinking it was juice. The glasses were served to three residents, referred to as “R1, R2, and R3” in the official report.

“Upon being served, R1’s lips began to swell and was black and red in color,” reads the report. “R2 yelled after drinking out of the juice cup and then sat down.”

Once staff determined it was soap and not juice, they called 911.

Resident “1” died due to severe chemical burns after ingesting highly alkaline fluid. R2 was admitted to a hospital with “acute respiratory distress requiring intubation” and later died. R3 survived, but had burns to their lips, mouth and tongue.

The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office charged Atria Park employee Alisia Rivera Mendoza, 35, in April with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of elder abuse. She is due to be arraigned on Friday.

Atria said that the poisonings at the San Mateo care home were “in no way indicative of the quality care our staff provide each and every day. We remain deeply saddened by the deaths of our residents, and our hearts are with their families and loved ones.”

“Not only was the death of Mr. Canoun completely needless because there was not enough staff and the poison wasn’t locked up, [Atria] did nothing. They could’ve saved the lives of two other people had they instead told the truth rather than go on this Flaming Hot Cheetos charade,” said attorney Kathryn Stebner who represents the family in the Walnut Creek case.

During the recent wet winter, BART acknowledged that its system experienced chronic meltdowns traced to a built-in braking problem with the new “Fleet of the Future” trains.

The problem is triggered when sensors detect the train wheels are slipping or sliding on wet rails. To assure safety, failsafe emergency brakes kick in to slow the train. But that has caused cars on the new fleet to suffer mass “wheel flats” – or spots of uneven wear – that forced entire trains out of service for days for wheel resurfacing.

While BART says the wet weather nightmare is largely over – at least until next winter – experts tell NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit that BART’s braking issues are far from over with. That’s because the emergency braking will be called upon to stop trains quickly to protect the system from damage caused in a significant earthquake.

bart May 11

Fire Destroys 6 Cars at BART Parking Lot in Antioch

bart May 3

BART Unveils Fast, New Track Inspection System

“It sounds like BART has a wholesale problem,” said transportation consultant Jerry Cauthen, a five decade veteran of the public transit sector. He says emergency braking shouldn’t create its own kind of emergency. “You want to try to avoid that in a braking system — if they have a braking system that’s got that problem,’’ he said, “they’ve got to weigh whether it makes sense to replace it.”

BART has no plans to do that in the immediate future, although officials say automated train control technology may be the solution in the long run. In the meantime, they say stopping the trains quickly is vital to BART’s ability to serve as a lifeline before and after a quake.

To preserve its system, BART is relying on ShakeAlert – an early warning system of hundreds of seismic sensors managed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Those sensors detect precursor P waves, triggered before anyone feels the shaking. USGS ShakeAlert official Robert de Groot says the idea is to give BART an estimated 10 seconds to start to slow down trains.

“Anything we can do to eke out even a fraction of a second is going to help because it will get them doing what they’re doing sooner,’’ de Groot said.

A ShakeAlert notification could give BART a head start on cutting train speeds from 70 mph to 27 mph, with automatic, normal braking. Then operators will be instructed to deploy the emergency brakes to make a complete stop, if necessary.

“It’s a life safety issue,” said BART board member John McPartland, an early advocate of adopting ShakeAlert for the transit system. He says the goal is to ensure BART will stop in time to avoid quake hazards that could trigger derailments, so it can be up and running almost immediately after a significant quake. “When the streets are down, there’s rubble in the streets and BART is running — we will have that capability.”

But BART officials have acknowledged that using the emergency brakes on its new trains has triggered wet weather delays. Similar damage from a quake, experts say, would likely force trains to operate more slowly for months to allow times for all the trains to be serviced.

“Having wheel flats is not an ideal situation,” BART spokesman Jim Allison acknowledged.

He said BART hoped to resolve the braking wheel flat issue when it stopped accepting new cars for a year in 2021. But in the end, BART opted to resume shipments last year without resolving it. “Overall,” he said, “the new “Fleet of the Future” trains are much more reliable than the legacy fleet — and we’re confident in the new technology.”

“As tradeoffs go, it’s worth the price,” BART board Director McPartland said, adding that all those wheel flats won’t pose a safety risk. Although, he says, riders may have to endure constant uncomfortable clunking from all the flat wheels.

“But if you’re in a post-earthquake environment and you’re trying to get from point A to point B,’’ he said, “I’ve got news for you: We can listen to the clunk.”

But riders will likely have to put up with more than just that clunking. Experts say BART will have to slow speeds on its clunky trains to keep them in operation during the months it will take for all the wheels to be resurfaced. BART slowed trains during the recent wet weather to limit the damage from flats due to sudden braking.

Experts say the glitch will likely have greater impact as BART replaces more of its legacy fleet, which has proven far less vulnerable to mass wheel damage from emergency braking. Right now, new cars make up just over half of the trains in service.

BART currently expects to retire all the old cars within two years.

The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to stave off individual lawsuits and consolidate the claims in a court-supervised process that will ultimately lead to settlements.

“After careful consideration of the various alternatives for providing just compensation to innocent people who were harmed, we believe this process is the best way to ensure a fair and equitable outcome for survivors,” said Bishop Michael Barber.

“It will also allow RCBO to stabilize its finances and continue the sacred mission entrusted to us by Christ and the Church,” Barber said in a news release Monday. “Given our current financial resources, RCBO could not shoulder the burden of litigating 330 cases filed under the recent California Assembly Bill 218.”

That law opened a three-year window allowing childhood sex abuse lawsuits to move forward despite statute of limitations rules that had prevented older claims.

Church officials say most of the sex abuse claims it’s facing involve allegations from 1960s, 1970s and 1980s by priests who are no longer active in the ministry or who have died.

In March, the diocese announced it was considering bankruptcy, just days after the Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for Chapter 11 for similar reasons.

oakland diocese Mar 16

Oakland Diocese Considers Filling for Bankruptcy

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 6

Oakland Cathedral Employee Arrested For Allegedly Possessing, Sharing Child Porn

Survivors’ attorneys have criticized the tactic in part because it removes the cases from civil court, where victims are allowed to present evidence of alleged abuse.

“The Diocese of Oakland’s decision to declare bankruptcy is a calculated decision in hopes to silence and suppress survivors of abuse,” said attorney Jeff Anderson, whose firm represents more than 75 people with claims against the diocese.

The bankruptcy process is more about finding a way for the diocese to stay afloat while meeting its potential financial obligations to survivors than it is about uncovering the facts behind their claims.

“It is, unfortunately, another stab at hiding information regarding perpetrators and the crimes committed by and through the church, as well as their assets and financial information, for the benefit of the church at the expense of those who have been seriously harmed as children,” said attorney Jennifer Stein.

“Survivors, the parishioners of the Diocese of Oakland, and the public deserve to know the full truth,” Stein said.

The filing won’t impact the diocese’s Catholic schools or the “mission and ministries” that serve roughly 550,000 parishioners in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, according to church officials.

To find out more information on the bankruptcy filing people can visit www.kccllc.net/RCBO.

The shooting brought a neighborhood to a standstill with the suspect, at one point, using children as a human shield.

It was a chaotic scene that unfolded in the middle of a busy intersection. The video, obtained through a public records request, showed what officers saw and heard that day, ultimately leading them to fire their weapons and kill the suspect.

Investigative Reporter Hilda Gutierrez has more in the video above.

The California State Auditor also blasted the UC Office of the President for not making repatriation efforts a priority, citing in the report a lack of critical funding and planning.

UC Berkeley has the largest remaining collection, according to the audit.

Cal is a 155-year-old institution that’s celebrated for its progressive values and fight for social justice. But for many indigenous tribes, including the Chumash Indians, a dark history – their history – lies behind the university’s iconic green gate.

“It’s not okay to house human remains for scientific purposes, research purposes,” said Nakia Zavalla with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in an interview conducted by ProPublica and NBC News. “It was horrific. I just can’t believe that practice ever existed.”

In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to protect Native American gravesites and create a process for tribes to have their ancestor’s remains and cultural artifacts returned, or repatriated, from government agencies and museums that collected them for archeological or anthropological research.

In 2018, Zavalla’s tribe won its decade-long battle against UC Berkeley to have their ancestors returned, ProPublica and NBC News found. Zavalla says the process of retrieving their ancestors was disturbing.

ProPublica – The Repatriation Project: The Delayed Return of Native Remains

“We found them in rows of shelves and, at times, the skulls separated from the rest of the body,” Zavala said. “It was unbelievable how many ancestors they had been housing and for how many years they had them there.”

According to state auditors, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego and UC Riverside still maintain very large collections of Native American remains and artifacts, despite their repatriation mandate.

“It’s been 30 years that they’ve had to get this done,” said Jim Adams who supervised the state agency’s review of NAGPRA and its 2001 state counterpart, CalNAGPRA. The two acts require institutions to return remains and cultural artifacts, but Adams says there continues to be a major lack of funding and planning by some UC schools.

Data from the audit shows UC Berkeley had the largest collection by far, with nearly a half million items. UC Berkeley repatriated thousands of the items between 1990 and 2019, but is still in possession of approximately 350,000 remains and artifacts, according to the audit.

Internal audit documents obtained by the Investigative Unit through a public records request show “Berkeley estimates that it will take 10 [more] years to completely repatriate its collection” and cost $1.5 million annually. Yet, UC Berkeley’s Chancellor only earmarked $470,000 to get it done, the documents reveal.

“And that’s concerning considering how much time has passed since the requirements were established,” said Adams.

Berkeley is not the only UC institution estimating another decade for repatriation. According to the audit, “The [UC] Office of the President has not prioritized returning remains.”   

In a statement, a representative of UC Berkeley’s chancellor said the campus “appreciates the [State’s] guidance” and is “eager to implement all the new recommendations.”

UC Berkeley, he says, is expanding funding for repatriation and hiring four additional dedicated NAGPRA staff. The UC Office of the President also said it’s “committed to implementing all recommendations.”

In statements, UC Riverside and UC San Diego said they’re committed to upholding NAGPRA. UC Riverside said it recently completed its largest repatriation to date of over 25,000 objects. NBC Bay Area is still waiting to hear from UC Santa Barbara, which state auditors said was still reviewing its repository of cultural items.

But not all academics are on board.

“I don’t agree with repatriation and reburial of skeletal remains,” said San Jose State University Professor Elizabeth Weiss.

Weiss is a physical anthropologist, meaning she’s an expert at looking at skeletal remains to reconstruct the past and understand certain modern human health issues, such as bone biology.

Weiss is one of the harshest critics of repatriation. After publishing her book “Repatriation and the Erasing of the Past” and posting pictures of herself holding skulls on her Twitter page, Weiss faced a storm of backlash including from her own university.

“This was a completely normal picture. Certain tribes posted photos of them working on skeletal remains or with skeletal remains,” Weiss said. “I think it would be insensitive if I would put a clown hat on the skull. I think that this photo showed my respect and my love for the study of the past.”

Despite being attacked for her views, Weiss says she continues to speak out because, in her opinion, anthropology is at risk.

“It’s at risk of losing all the skeletal remains. But it’s also at risk of losing the goal to understand through scientific research as opposed to accepting stories to prevent from offending somebody,” she said

When asked how she would feel if her own great ancestors were dug up from their graves and studied, Weiss said she would have no problem with it.

“My parents in their will have said that they want to donate their bodies to science. I plan to do the same,” she said.

But Nakia Zavalla says that’s not what her ancestors and thousands of others wanted. While repatriation has improved, Zavalla says trust still wavers.

“I think that their words need to be followed by their actions,” Zavalla said.

A total of six windows were found cracked at 580 California Street on March 14, city building inspection records show. One window cracked on each floor from the 18th to the 23rd level. But at the time, city officials did not make the findings public.

The cracking was found the same day as a far more dramatic incident – when a broken window plunged more than 40 stories at the building nearby at 555 California Street.

San Francisco Apr 7

‘Defective and Dangerous': Window Failed at SF High-Rise Where Residents Had Sued

San Francisco Mar 28

Cracked High-Rise Window in San Francisco's Financial District Secured

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin says when he pressed them about what took so long to disclose the 580 California case, building officials said they got caught up in handling their 555 California investigation. But while inspectors ordered a full façade inspection there, records show they did not make the same order for 580 California.

In a statement, the Department of Building Inspection said that its inspector checked the 580 California building “but it was not initially flagged internally as being directly associated with a wind event” and so the high-rise initially didn’t have to submit a façade evaluation. Inspection records indicate the building was later told to submit such a report, however.

Peskin says he’s still not satisfied with the building inspection department’s explanation for the delayed disclosure, especially given the gravity of the risk involved in window failures.

“They have not given me a rational explanation, other than an apology,” Peskin said. “Now it’s out there – I’d rather know it late than not know it at all.”

Peskin says he remains skeptical at the theory now offered by city officials – that the glass from the plunging window at 555 California could have flown hundreds of feet across the street and damaged 580 California’s windows.

Especially since it’s not the first time he has heard such a theory.

In its recent report to the city about the failure of 20 windows in Salesforce East at 350 Mission St. during the second windstorm on March 21, the building owner blames glass fragments from Unit 49A at the Millennium Tower as damaging upper floor windows in the Salesforce East building.

The report cites as evidence glass fragments found on its 30th floor roof, suggesting Millennium fragments from a higher elevation flew across Mission St. and over a 30-foot parapet wall. The glass fragments broke upper windows, the report suggests, which in turn caused lower windows to break. Peskin says he is tired of the finger-pointing.

“People should not be claiming that they know how windows broke until there’s been an independent engineer’s analysis,’’ he said.

Peskin says he now intends to wait to review the findings of the newly commissioned report on the window failures before deciding whether to push his proposed mandate requiring full façade inspections for 71 of the city’s newest, tallest buildings by November.

The city recently enlisted the Emeryville-based firm of Wiss, Janney and Elstner — recognized façade specialists – to complete a full report in three months.

California’s Department of Social Services has filed legal action to revoke Atria Park of San Mateo’s facility license.

This state action comes months after the two of those three elderly dementia patients died after the Aug. 27 incident at the care facility on Norfolk Street.

One resident, Trudy Maxwell, 93, died shortly after she drank the cleaner. Another resident survived, but a third, Peter Schroder Jr., also 93, died 11 days later.

INVESTIGATIVE Apr 18

Worker Charged With Manslaughter, Elder Abuse for Poisoning Deaths at Senior Home

Investigative Unit Sep 1, 2022

Exclusive: Death of Another Atria Senior Living Resident After ‘Something They Ingested'

According to a newly-released facility evaluation, at least three Atria staff members were involved in transferring a cleaning chemical from a five-gallon container into a beverage pitcher.

A fourth employee accidentally took the pitcher and served the chemical to dementia patients, thinking it was fruit juice, accidentally killing two residents.

According to the state’s report, Atria didn’t train these employees on how to transfer detergent or how to handle chemicals, even though they were assigned to kitchen duties.

On March 14, the state issued a fine to Atria Park of San Mateo for $39,500 for the two residents’ deaths and injuring a third.

The California Department of Social Services’ website currently shows the agency has filed legal action to revoke the care home’s facility license.

A legal complaint the agency provided to NBC Bay Area confirms the action is a result of the poisonings.

Atria Senior Living released the following statement Wednesday evening:

“We disagree with the Department of Social Services’ decision and have filed a notice of contest to appeal that decision. We are in discussions with the department about resolution of that appeal. During this process, Atria Park of San Mateo will remain open, and our employees continue to be focused on providing a safe and welcoming environment for all our residents.”

The state’s legal complaint also sheds light on new accusations against the facility. According the state regulators, Atria Park of San Mateo’s maintenance director falsely accused a resident of serving fellow dementia patients the cleaning fluid. The maintenance director reported this false information to both a fire captain and a police officer.

In April, another Atria employee, 35-year-old Alisia Rivera Mendoza of East Palo Alto, was criminally charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of elder abuse stemming from the Aug. 27 incident.

In two windstorms last month, windows broke or fell out of six separate high-rises in San Francisco. City officials ordered full reports from the owners within 14 days, explaining what happened.

In one of those reports, a consultant for Salesforce East at 350 Mission blames the neighboring 58-story Millennium Tower, across the street at 301 Mission, for its window failures.

The theory is that glass from a window that broke at Unit 49A of the Millennium blew across the street, hitting and breaking Salesforce East’s upper floor windows. Those upper floor windows sent glass down to lower floor windows, which were in turn damaged.  

But, Bill Thomas, a 42-year veteran of the glass industry, says glass fragments from Millennium’s broken window would simply be too heavy to have blown that far across a street —  even in extreme conditions like last month’s windstorms.

“This magical glass,” he said, “has to fly from Millennium  — across Mission, into the building.”

“That just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Thomas said.

But the Salesforce East report says it has evidence to back its theory, in the form of glass fragments found on the Salesforce East roof, which is enclosed by a 30-foot high wall. The fact that there was glass on the roof of the 30-story high-rise, it says, suggests those fragments were somehow “blown towards” Salesforce East “from a higher elevation.”

The chain reaction triggered by those upper windows breaking, the report says, caused damage to the lower floor windows. In all, city officials say some 20 windows broke from the 10^th to the 30^th floors.

Salesforce East officials did not respond to a request for comment.

“It is just a case of finger-pointing — it is baloney, and I’m calling ‘BS,’’’ said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is seeking reforms on city inspection requirements for the city’s newest, tallest buildings that had previously enjoyed 30-year inspection exemptions on their windows. “There is no earthly way that the glass at 301 Mission could have caused those failures.”

Millennium’s own report did acknowledge that one of its windows failed after being left open, causing it to break in high winds. But it says all operable windows in high-rises pose a similar risk if someone leaves them open, like what happened with Unit 49A.

In a statement, the city’s Department of Building Inspection says it was “not satisfied” with any of the reports it has received to date. Officials say the plan now is to enlist an independent expert to help determine why windows failed on all six buildings during the windstorms, and make recommendations.  

Thomas says that evaluation is urgently needed, because while many high-rise windows have protective backing that prevent glass from falling out even after a window breaks, the backing isn’t required by code.

“Why did glass break in any of these buildings? Why did the glass evacuate (and fall from) the openings in these buildings. Neither one of those two things should have happened,” Thomas concluded. “Until that is corrected, it is a potential hazard to the general public.”

A newly-released coroner’s report shows Price died in November 2021 from an overdose of fentanyl and a concoction of other drugs, including flualprazolam and cocaine. At the time, the underaged teenager was with 24-year-old Michael J. Russell in his Corralitos home, which is owned by his parents Pricilla Ann Russell and Micheal B. Russell.

Michael J. Russell, also known as Mikey, was never criminally charged in Price’s death. But, earlier this year, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for providing Price and another minor with narcotics and having sex with both teenage girls.

In a yearlong investigation, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit reported on serious concerns with how law enforcement handled Price’s death and the possible impact it had on Russell’s criminal prosecution.

Separately, the Price family sued Michael Russell and his parents for wrongful death in civil court.

In the lawsuit, they accuse “Mikey” and his family of delaying medical help that may have saved their daughter’s life. They also accused his parents of knowing their son “had a history of preying on young/underage girls” and that their home “provided a place/opportunity for crimes against underage[d] girls.”

“I think all of us as a family … we just knew we were going to make a big deal,” said Michael Price, Emma Lace Price’s father. “This wasn’t going to be something we were going to be quiet about and go away and not make public … It was devastating to our community, to our family.”

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit reached out to the Russell’s attorney and his parent’s attorney but have not heard back. In court records, they denied the allegations. The settlement is not an admission of liability.

Since Price’s parents have not agreed to settle with Michael Russell, they can still continue their civil suit against him.

Catch up on the Investigative Unit’s yearlong coverage of this case: www.nbcbayarea.com/fightingfentanyl

Investigative Reporter Candice Nguyen worked on this story. If you have tip for her about this case or another email candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.

Prosecutors say Joaquin Duarte, 52, from the town of Newman, in Stanislaus County, was driving a BART pickup at the time he allegedly struck and killed 45-year-old William Thain King.

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Authorities say King was about a third of the way across the street in the 1500 block of El Camino Real when he was struck at 1:06 a.m. on April 5. King was pronounced dead at the scene.

Duarte was on duty and was assigned to the South San Francisco area at the time the incident occurred, BART officials said. But they did not answer any questions Thursday about what happened after the accident, citing personnel confidentiality.

According to San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe, Duarte remained jailed Thursday on $60,000 bail. He is due back in court on May 25, when he is expected to be arraigned on the felony hit and run allegation as well as a misdemeanor manslaughter charge.

Duarte’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Just in San Francisco, police records show close to 2,900 shopliftings were reported in 2022, way up from 2020, when shopliftings actually decreased by 34%, when the COVID pandemic began and many businesses shut down.

But the crime rebounded in 2021, with shoplifting reports going back up 15% from pre-pandemic levels. 

“There’s no deterrent in the state of California to discourage theft at this point,” said Mike Leininger, a retired police officer and security consultant. 

Under current state law, shoplifting merchandise valued under $950 is considered a misdemeanor and often not investigated. 

“They basically opened the gates to theft,” said Leninger. “And you are seeing that in stores that are closing, chains that are lowering the number of stores under the guise of financial constraints or reasons.”

He said what happened with the loss prevention employee in Pleasanton’s Home Depot Tuesday should have never happened.  

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“For the state of California, for licensed security guards, they are mandated to observe and report only. They’re not to take physical action,” he said.

Leininger added that if you witness a shoplifting as an employee or customer, you should not engage the suspect. It is best to notify the authorities and record, only if it is safe to do so.

Alisia Rivera Mendoza of East Palo Alto is charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of elder abuse stemming from the Aug. 27 incident at Atria Park in San Mateo. One resident, Trudy Maxwell, 93, died shortly after she drank the cleaner. Another resident survived, but a third, Peter Schroder Jr., also 93, died 11 days later.

“It’s been pretty anguishing,” said Schroder’s daughter, Susan, who was with her father when he died. “You know, it’s hard to sleep at night. But, you know: My father loved me and I loved him, and that’s the most important thing.”

In filing the charges earlier this month, prosecutors allege that Rivera Mendoza’s negligence caused the victims to endure “unjustifiable physical pain and mental suffering” and “willfully caused and permitted” lives to be put in peril.

Rivera Mendoza did not respond to requests for comment. She is due in court on May 12 for arraignment.

Officials with Atria Senior Living told us they are aware of the charges and “will continue to cooperate with the authorities” during the legal process.

“We took immediate action in response to this incident, including reviewing and reinforcing our training and policies on chemical safety. As always, we remain focused on the safety, health, and well-being of all our residents.”

San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said that while Rivera Mendoza has been remorseful and clearly did not intend for the fluid to be served to residents, there’s clear evidence of criminal negligence.

“If you are criminally negligent and failing to take care of the person in your charge, we’re not going to say ‘that’s too bad,’’’ he said. “We’re going to hold you accountable for it.”

One critical piece of the case, he says, is the kitchen surveillance video showing Rivera Mendoza pouring out cleaner from a larger container into the pitcher. “It’s very hard to deal with a 5-gallon drum,” Wagstaffe said, “and so she poured it into a fruit pitcher that is used to serve drinks, intending to then take that and move it elsewhere to do the cleaning with just a simple little container. And she left it, she got busy with some other things.”

The video also shows another worker warned Rivera Mendoza about what she was doing, but then both became distracted, Wagstaffe said.

Schroder, who is suing Atria for wrongful death, says she is uncomfortable that the only charges filed so far are against the care worker, not the management.

“It seems like she’s a scapegoat to me,” she said, adding that Atria mangers are “the ones that are actively holding people’s lives in their hands because of the example they set.”

Wagstaffe says that while he has met with victims’ families and understands them wanting to have Atria held accountable, that decision now rests with the Attorney General’s office.

“We will let the attorney general, with all their broad resources, decide if that’s appropriate,” he said, adding that his office joined with Contra Costa prosecutors in seeking the state’s involvement. That office has charged a worker at Atria Walnut Creek with the death of Constantine Canoun. Authorities believe Canoun drank cleaning solution that the worker left out. The incident happened four days before the Atria Park poisonings.

Five-year-old Eliyanah Crisostomo was shot and killed on Interstate 880 near the Fremont-Milpitas border Saturday evening. The victim’s parents were inside the vehicle at the time of the shooting but were uninjured, the California Highway Patrol said. No arrests have been made and no suspects were immediately identified.

An NBC Bay Area analysis of California Highway Patrol data found that reports of highway shootings in the Bay Area doubled during a three-year period, from 82 incidents in 2019 to 178 in 2021. There were 384 total reports across nine Bay Area counties during that span. 

There were 15 fatal shootings from 2019-2021. Injuries were reported in 30% of the cases.

Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano set the bar for both the total number of reports and the rate of incidents adjusted for population. Contra Costa saw the biggest increase, from eight reports in 2019 to 49 in 2021.

But not all counties appeared to be impacted equally. Napa was the only county with zero reports of shootings from 2019-2021. Sonoma and Marin each had three reports total from 2019-2021.

The portion of Interstate 880 where Crisostomo was shot and killed near the Fremont-Milpitas border had one shooting each year from 2019-2021. In two of those cases, an injury was reported.

Bay Area Highway Shootings, 2019-2021

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit mapped 378 reported highway shootings that occurred between 2019 and 2021. Larger points indicate reports of death or injury. Approximate shooting locations are based on data from the California Highway Patrol.

Note: Six additional reports were not mapped due to unclear location descriptions
Source: California Highway Patrol
Credit: Sean Myers/NBC Bay Area

Road Rage and Gang Activity

The rise in shootings can be attributed to an increase in gang activity and road rage, according to the CHP. The agency said it is rare for innocent people to be injured or killed.

The tragic death of Crisostomo came 17 months after the highway shooting death of 2-year-old Jasper Wu on Interstate 880 in Oakland. Three suspects were eventually arrested and charged with murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon. Two of the suspects were also charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and criminal street gang conspiracy.

In nearly 90% of cases from 2019-2021, no arrest was made.

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Sometime in the evening of March 21, a window on the fifth floor of the 1400 Mission Street building failed on the Jessie Street side, prompting city officials to cite the owners and order a complete window inspection to assure safety. While the cause of that failure is still being investigated, it apparently wasn’t the first window to suddenly fail at the building.

San Francisco court documents show that back in 2019, the Building Homeowners Association sued the window supplier for allegedly providing “defective and dangerous to the residents of the 1400 Mission development, to passersby on the streets below, and the general public.”

Attorneys in the suit declined to comment, citing the terms of a confidential legal settlement back in 2020.

Bill Thomas, a 42-year glass industry veteran and consultant, served as the expert consultant for the plaintiffs in that case. He worries about the risk to the public from all the recent failures across the city. “It scares the hell out of me,” he said.

As for the 1400 Mission Street project, a 15-story high-rise completed in 2015, Thomas says he examined the remains of eight windows that had previously shattered. All of them, according to the suit, were tempered glass, which normally shatters into harmless pieces.

But the lawsuit notes the 1400 Mission Street windows were separately treated with a bluish ceramic coating to limit visibility. That ceramic coating allegedly acted to bond fractured pieces into larger chunks.

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“That kept all the little pieces of glass together,” Thomas said, “and if that it hit somebody, it would kill.”

According to the lawsuit, the windows that failed exhibited a “butterfly” pattern of breakage, which is allegedly a telltale sign of an invisible contaminant embedded in the glass panes during manufacturing.

Thomas said the failure last month had one difference. It was on the street side of the building, not the inner courtyard where the other failures he studied had occurred.

“I was always concerned about the Mission Street side and the Jessie Street side,” he said.

While some problems are invisible, Thomas says, most others can be spotted with detailed inspections. But it takes training, expertise, and above all, time, to inspect every window. He says a typical inspection of a so-called curtain wall system, where windows are tied in to an aluminum frame, would be done using a window-washing rig suspended from the outside of the building.

But San Francisco has not been requiring any curtain wall inspections for new buildings for years. City code specifically exempts high-rises built after 1998 for the first 30 years after construction – including 1400 Mission Street and two other newer high-rises that suffered window failures.

“That’s what drives me crazy about curtain wall,” Thomas said. “It’s so unregulated and it can be extraordinarily dangerous.”

“There is no question that this is urgent,” said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who has introduced legislation that would eliminate the city’s inspection exemption for 71 of its newest and tallest buildings.

Peskin wants to force all 71 to get window inspections by November. “The miracle here is that nobody was seriously injured or killed,” he said, “even though San Francisco’s downtown is less crowded than it was before the pandemic, there’s still plenty of folks right outside of this door.”

But doing that many inspections, that quickly, will be a tall order, says Thomas.

“They’re giving you, you know, eight, nine months to do all of this by November? You’re never going to get quality people on the building in that amount of time,” he said. “It’s going to take a longer amount of time.”

Peskin says a key first step is getting back just the inspection reports on the six buildings where windows failed last month.

“I wanted these reports yesterday,’’ he said. “I want to know what’s in them.”

When they originally cited the buildings last month, Department of Building Inspection officials specified the 14-day deadline for licensed architects or engineers to report back on the findings of complete façade inspections. But officials say they’re satisfied that owners are cooperating in meeting the challenge of arranging mass inspections of hundreds of windows.

 But, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was quick to say the city still needs reports on what triggered the string of failures as soon as possible.

“Time is of the essence,” he said. “The city needs this data so we can determine what caused these failures and understand what steps need to be taken to prevent future failures. This is a critical life safety matter.”

The  owners of 555 California St. – where the first window failure happened on March 14 – have been cooperative and were the first to be given more time to complete the inspections required under a notice of violation, said Patrick Hannan, spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection.

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The other five buildings had apparent wind-related failures on or after March 21. First at the 50 California Street building, then high-rises at 350 Mission, 301 Mission and 1400 Mission Streets. The next day, inspectors issued a citation related to a broken window at Fox Plaza on Market Street.

The deadline has now passed for all those owners to produce reports, said Department of Building Inspection spokesman Patrick Hannan. But he added city officials are satisfied that the owners have secured the windows and have protected the surrounding areas from the potential for falling glass.

“The consecutive storm events delayed the building managers’ ability to conduct exterior façade evaluations,” Hannan said, “but we are in ongoing communication with the building management for these properties and confirm progress is being made on the reports.”

As a result of the six failures, the city has announced it is ordering façade inspections for 71 newer buildings that are 15 or more stories. Because they were buiilt after 1998, the 71 buildings had been exempt from initial inspections for 30 years after being built under the city’s code.

The deadline to complete those inspections is Nov. 1, according to legislation introduced this week by Supervisor Peskin. Three of the buildings that had windows fail last month, all along Mission Street – had been exempt. However, the city had already required the Millennium Tower at 301 Mission to be inspected after a window failed there in 2020.

“I was excited because it meant that somebody couldn’t build behind my property,” Kanarek said.

She never imagined all that soil above her property sliding down the hillside, splintering fences and piling up in her backyard.

But that’s the reality she and other property owners along Cooper Drive now face following a parade of winter storms that dumped rain onto the unstable hillside, leading to a slow-moving mudslide that forced residents out of their homes.

It feels like Deja vu for Kanarek, whose property got hit by a similar slide back in 2019. She had to spend $5,000 to replace a destroyed fence and says her neighbor spent significantly more repairing the collapsed hillside.

That year, the city financed a project to replace 875 feet of a deteriorated concrete drainage ditch and install a retaining wall to repair “localized failures” along the slope, and Kanarek believed her hillside problems were in the past.

“It was work that was going to help us,” Kanarek said. “I had no reason to think that it wasn’t going to help.”

Then came 2023 and a string of powerful  winter storms.

“So my neighbor, a day or two after New Year’s … called the fire department because they saw a landslide forming at the top of the hillside,” Kanarek said.

Katherine was forced to leave her home for weeks and the fire department red tagged her home, saying it was unsafe to occupy. Then in March, after getting pummeled by more rain, the slide continued down the hillside, plowing through her back and side fences and depositing mounds of dirt in her yard.

“I’m just nervous and have lost a lot of sleep and have anxiety over what’s going on,” Kanarek said. “Not being sure that it’s going to be safe to be in my own home.”

Kanarek said she can’t be sure what’s causing the slides, but believes it’s a combination of inadequate drainage and unstable soil. The city of Santa Rosa owns an easement behind her backyard, and a large Jewish temple sits on top of the hill.

Now, Kanarek says she can’t help but question the city’s 2019 project and whether they went far enough to shore up the hillside. She’s left scrambling for answers about what caused the slide, who’s responsible, and whether she’ll be on the hook for more repair costs.

The city told NBC Bay Area its current priority is “removing the slide mass that is currently threatening life safety” and that “any future issues would be reviewed and discussed once the immediate threat has been mitigated.” 

According to the city, the recent slide has impacted the retaining wall and concrete drainage installed in 2019, but “the slide area reconstructed by the city in 2019 appears to be stable and is showing no signs of failure.”

Removing the slide mass from the hillside is expected to cost about $300,000, according to a city spokesperson. They couldn’t say what costs homeowners might be on the hook for until the debris has been removed and they can investigate what caused the slide.

Earlier this week, Kanarek said she received a message from an engineer working on the cleanup project saying the city would replace her back fence along the easement, but not her side fence.

Congregation Shomrei Torah, the temple that owns the land above the city’s easement, sent a statement saying they’re “absolutely aware of the landslide’s impact on the neighborhood” and are working with the city to find a path forward.

“Shomrei Torah is working closely with the city, which has had its engineers keeping close watch on the slide and the safety of the people who live in the affected homes,” said Executive Director Katie Evenbeck. “We are working with the city on assessing the cause of the slide and its resolution, including repair costs. The rainfall we’ve received since Dec. 26 has created challenges throughout our community.”

As for Kanarek, she’s hoping for a long-term solution, one that doesn’t leave her anxious the next time it starts raining.

“We haven’t really heard much from the city about next steps,” Kanarek said. “I’m nervous that the solution isn’t going to be long lasting. I’m nervous that it’s going to continue to be unsafe. I’m worried that I’m going to have to relive this nightmare every year.”

The order comes less than a week after NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit first reported that three of the six buildings hit by window failures were post-1998 high-rises that were previously exempt from façade inspections for the first 30 years after being built.

One of those exempt buildings was Salesforce East, completed in 2015. That building, at 350 Mission Street, had at least 19 windows failed during recent wind storms.

The city has now ordered that it conduct an emergency façade inspection within 14 days.

Two other window failures were reported in other buildings on Mission Street – the Millennium Tower at 301 Mission and the building at 1400 Mission.

Those two buildings were also built after 1998 and should also have 30 year inspection exemptions – However, Millennium Tower had previously been ordered to inspect its windows after an open window broke free and fell in high winds back in 2020.

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Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was the first to call for more inspections. He welcomed the order as a good first step as he introduced new rules Tuesday that would give building owners until November to get inspections done.

“As we are trying to figure out why these buildings failed, this is going to give us knowledge about the rest of the buildings and whether they are going to perform in high wind events,” he said.

Under the emergency rules, owners of newer high rise buildings – 15-stories or taller – must commission an architect or engineer to perform checks of the entire building façade to “ensure the safety and stability of all façade elements, including windows,” according to a statement issued by the city.  

The mayor issued an emergency declaration on March 27, granting the authority to city inspectors to impose new inspection requirements.

The inspections, city officials say, are designed to  spot cracks or other signs that windows could be at risk of failing.

The new requirement will apply to 71 buildings that are 15 or more stories tall.  The city has about 120 post-1998 buildings between 5 and 15 stories – and those are still exempt from inspections for the first 30 years after being built.   

“This is an important step we are taking to ensure the safety of all of our buildings to keep our residents safe,” Mayor Breed said in a statement issued Tuesday. “I want to thank the Department of Building Inspection for their work to not only respond immediately to these glass issues during the storms, but also for quickly taking on this critical program expansion.”

All the six high-rise buildings with recent window failures are currently under 14-day orders to inspect windows to assure façade integrity.  In addition to the three Mission street buildings – the three other buildings that were hit by failures were at 555 California Street, 50 California Street and Fox Plaza on Market Street.   

On a dismal day earlier this month, rain-soaked riders at BART’s Walnut Creek Station were quick to complain about having to wait 10 to 20, even 40 minutes during this unusually rainy season.

“The delays have been extremely bad, really bad, especially with all the rain and the weather,” said one rider, Rachel Boyett.

“So I’ll generally miss my first train, but I’ll plan for that and catch the second one,” said another, Arjun Madra.

“It’s a big problem,” added veteran rider Blake Peterson.

In fact, newly released BART data covering just the last three months of 2022 shows rain accounted for nine of BART’s ten worst late-train meltdowns.

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The delays have hit as BART is introducing more of its new “Fleet of the Future” train cars, which it has long touted as far superior to its “legacy” fleet.

“The new train cars are now more reliable than the old ones,” BART spokesman Jim Allison said in an interview this week.

While that may be true overall, Allison recently acknowledged that BART has been dealing with a challenge with the new fleet – how the new cars brake in response to wet conditions.

Allison says the new cars are equipped with sensors that detect when train wheels slide or spin too fast on rain slickened rails. The idea is to make sure the train can safely stop at the next station. When the sensors kick on, the train’s emergency “fail-safe” brakes activate to assure safety. That solves the safety problem, he says, but creates a reliability problem.

“We are having problems with the new trains where the entire train will get wheel flats and we have to take that entire train out of service,” Allison said.

He acknowledged that most wheels don’t go flat when old trains sense water on the track. But the new fleets braking system automatically applies to all the wheels at once, making them all go “flat” simultaneously.

The uneven wear on the wheels caused by that braking forces entire trains into the shop, like BART’s maintenance yard in Hayward. BART officials say it can take as many as three work shifts to resurface the wheels on one car, far longer an entire eight to ten car trains.

Allison says BART hopes that a more advanced train control system will fix the problem, but that could take a decade to come on line. Meanwhile, BART has been cutting speeds on above-ground parts of its system on rainy days. That has been causing delays and has not entirely eliminated the flat problem. “It’s not an ideal situation — we wouldn’t consider it unless we have to do it,” Allison said.

But the problem isn’t new. Back in January 2021, BART halted shipments of more of its new fleet cars, to resolve “poor reliability performance” issues and rain-related braking flats.

But in February of 2022, BART started accepting new train cars despite the continued braking problem. BART’s Allison says that was because the transit agency still believed the new cars superior over its legacy fleet.

“We were confident that when we resumed accepting the cars that the reliability issues had been addressed to the point where we felt that we were good going forward,” Allison said. Today, new cars make up about half of BART’s fleet, but the system is still running short on its targets for available cars.

BART board member Debora Allen says the routine rain delays are just one more factor in BART’s inability to get back riders after the Covid-19 pandemic. “The delays are really not acceptable,” Allen said. “We cannot for the rest of time go forward with trains being delayed every time…it’s wet.”

“Clearly, they need to fix it,” said passenger Blake Peterson, who’s been loyal to BART for two decades. But all the recent issues with safety and train delays, she says, “make me want to get in my car and drive over the Bay Bridge every day.’’

Recology’s Sustainable Crushing voluntarily stopped operating its Pier 94 facility back in 2021, after NBC Bay Area reported the potential risk to residents who were being housed in trailers as part of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The surrounding area includes not only Recology’s operation but several concrete batch plants. Air quality regulators have identified the area on maps as having elevated levels of extremely fine dust particles, known as PM 2.5 particulates. Air quality officials say the tiny particles – measuring less than 1/30th the thickness of human hair — have been linked to everything from asthma to lung cancer.

After NBC Bay Area’s story ran in 2021, city officials said they would meet with air quality management officials about any dust concerns.

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Soon, air quality officials vowed to crack down on dust pollution around the shelter and gave out air purifiers to shelter residents. Later, Recology voluntarily stopped operations at the plant it had been using for a decade – despite not having a local permit.

Bay Area Air Quality’s executive officers said in a statement that the newly issued final shutdown order was in response to a “clear violation of our rules” and “a clear demonstration of the Air District’s commitment to protect the health and well-being of Bayview Hunters Point residents.”

As for the debate over the lack of a local permit – Recology says it obtained state permits and was operating legally on the site. Recology is also the city’s waste hauler despite being mired in a public corruption scandal and refunding nearly $100 million in overcharges.

With the facility now formally shut down, regulators have ordered that trucks removing any stockpiled materials have their loads covered, obey speed limits and take other measures to limit dust.

An activist who pushed for the plant’s closure says, while they welcome the shutdown order, regulators need to do more for shelter residents.

“They really need to calculate the health impact on these people living there for two to three years with all the dust,” said Ray Tompkins, an environmental activist in the Hunters Point-Bayview community, “This is a good first step, but long overdue.”

Tompkins had measured elevated dust levels surrounding the COVID-19 shelter.

Brian Burke, now a sergeant, was training a rookie officer at the time of the May 31, 2018 incident. Body-worn camera footage shows the officers approaching the man at the back of the bus, responding to a report from the driver who said they couldn’t wake the sleeping man.

“Hey police. Police, wake up,” the officers tell the apparently sleeping man, who doesn’t respond. “Yo, buddy!”  one of officers continues, “Police, wake up. Hey, there you go!”

Within seconds, the video shows, Burke starts to yank the man from his seat, who hits his head on a metal handrail.  

Within seconds, Burke strikes him in the face. “Stop f—ing resisting!” Burke says, before striking him again.

The officers begin to grapple with the still seemingly disoriented passenger as they attempt to get him into handcuffs.

“What the f— is your problem?” the man says.

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At that point, the video shows Burke pepper spray him in the face.

He then falls out of his seat and is dragged off the bus in handcuffs by the officers. The man, whose name was blacked out in the investigative files, was treated at the scene for being pepper-sprayed according to the newly released records. The records show he told medics he had used the painkiller Oxycontin.

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit showed the video to Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco. She said she routinely hears homeless residents complain about interactions with the police and was troubled by how fast the officers resorted to force on a man she believes was clearly disoriented.

“This person was obviously in a very deep sleep,” she said. “He was having a hard time coming out of it and was brutalized in response.”

She says the video shows the problem with relying on police as the city’s primary response to homelessness complaints.

“The officers didn’t seem to be giving his life a lot of value,” she said. “And this was, I’m sure, an incredibly traumatizing experience for him.”

She’s not the only person who thought police went too far.

In a letter written on the day of the incident to the city’s police civilian watchdog agency, the Department of Police Accountability, a bystander said:  “If the heavily sedated drug user had been a white woman in relatively clean clothes, she would not have been hit in the head and pepper sprayed.”

But during a subsequent interview with a watchdog agency investigator, Burke said he was concerned the man could have been armed – even though the original call describe him as unarmed.

“I don’t know if this guy has needles.  I don’t know if this guy has knives. Most homeless people do,” Burke explained.   

Burke added that the ensuing use of force was justified under those circumstances. “My partner’s sitting there in this little, tiny area — with nowhere to retreat if he (the passenger) does pull a weapon — so my only option at that point was to deliver a distractionary blow to try and overcome his resistance and prevent him from reaching for a weapon.”

The watchdog agency ultimately referred the case to Police Chief Bill Scott for action, concluding Burke acted with “unnecessary and excessive force.” Documents indicate that one concern raised by the Department of Police Accountability was that Burke was setting a bad example for the rookie officer, who police say has since left the department.

“We always want to make sure that the public is protected, and when they’re not, that there is accountability from the systems that are in place,” said Paul Henderson, the Executive Director of the Department of Police Accountability.

Henderson said he could not comment on the outcome of this or any other case but told us he welcomed the release of disciplinary records like these under the new law.

“I don’t think we could be as effective without transparency laws,” he added. “The result of that are records like this, that objectively and independently, anyone like yourself or the public, can log in to see what actually happened. Was there accountability? Did something happen?”

In the Burke case, documents show Chief Scott found that Burke used “unnecessary” force and ordered he be suspended for three day and undergo mandatory retraining on department standards.

A command staff member who oversaw a hearing on the case had recommended a one-day suspension, the records show.

Days before the chief ordered that 3-day suspension in late 2019, police confirm Burke was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

The department said in statement that while it cannot comment on any personnel matter, it respects the watchdog agency’s findings and has been making changes to use of force policies.

Both Salesforce East at 350 Mission Street, and a 15-story building at 1400 Mission Street had windows fail during Tuesday’s windstorm. Salesforce East was completed in 2015 and 1400 Mission in 2016 – that means, under city regulations, both qualified for a 30-year inspection exemption automatically granted to buildings with permit applications dating back to 1998.

The exemption means those newer buildings do not need to perform “initial” façade inspections for decades. The deadline for an initial inspection would have been the year 2045 for Salesforce East and the year 2046 for 1400 Mission. However, both buildings now face an emergency 14-day inspection deadline following this week’s window failures.   

The problem plagued Millennium Tower, at 301 Mission Street, also reported a window failure on Tuesday.

While that building – completed in 2009 — also previously qualified for the inspection exemption … inspectors had already ordered a full façade inspection after a 2020 failure of a window that was left open in high winds.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said Friday that in light of the failures with three newer buildings, it’s time to end the 30-year inspection exemption. He pointed to what happened at the Salesforce East building as an example of the hidden danger that might have been addressed if it hadn’t been exempted from an initial façade inspection until 2045. On Tuesday more than a dozen windows broke or cracked, at least one each from the 11^th to 30^th floor, sending shards of glass raining down on the street.  

“This obviously made sense when it was drafted – to concentrate on older buildings — but now we have a rash of virtually brand new buildings and we have rethink this entire inspection dynamic,” Peskin said.

The current law requires façade inspections for older buildings, with more than five stories, by 2021 – but only if they were built before 1910.  Supervisor Peskin says city officials tell him that 40% of the buildings that qualify for those inspections have failed to meet that deadline to do the façade inspections.

 According to current city standards, 502 structures built between 1910-1925 era structures will come due for inspection by the end of this year.  A total of 438 buildings, built between 1926-1970, will be due for inspections at the end of 2025.  And 249 buildings, built between 1970 and 1998, will be due for inspection in 2027.

Two other older high rises hit by recent window failures, Fox Plaza at 1390 Market Street, and 555 California Street were due for inspections by 2025, under the rules – but both must now be inspected within 14 days due to window failures.  Although building inspection records show an 11th floor window blew out back in 2016 at 555 California, the city records do not indicate that the city inspector required a complete façade inspection before closing the case in 2017.  

Another building where a window failed this week – At 50 California – was not set for a façade inspection until 2027.  Now, because of the window failure, it will also require an inspection within 14 days.  

Supervisor Peskin says he wants emergency inspections of 180 of the city’s tallest buildings. He says he is working with the mayor’s office about an emergency order to get it done soon, but stresses any such order would need the approval of the Board of Supervisors.

City building inspection officials said Thursday that they’ve now issued a notice of violation against Fox Plaza, which includes city offices after a yet another window broke. This time, the window faced busy Market Street and sent debris into the building.

“The glass actually blew into the building,” said Patrick Hannan, a spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection. “There was not anyone in the space around that window at the time.”

Hannan said the city agency issued a notice of violation Thursday, requiring all building windows to be inspected. The window that broke between the 11th and 12th floors needed to be secured and the glass replaced. The agency also ordered an evaluation of all windows be completed within 14 days.

The break is the latest in a string of apparently weather-related window failures.

Authorities separately issued a notice of violation for a window that had been “blown out” on the Jessie Street side of a building at 1400 Mission, city records showed. It apparently occurred during a string of weather related window events on Tuesday. The Windows at the Salesforce East Tower and the Millennium Tower failed on that same day.

Records showed the owners at 1400 Mission were also ordered to secure the opening and remove debris, repair the window within 14 days, assess what triggered the failure and verify other windows are “intact and safe.”

Investigative Unit Mar 22

SF's Mission Street High-Rise Window Failures Trigger Call for Stepped Up Inspections

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 21

Mission Street Closed After Windows Fail at Salesforce Building, Millennium Tower in High Winds

The first in the recent string of apparent weather related window failures occurred on Mar.14, at the former Bank of America Building at 555 California Street. Two 43rd floor windows on different sides of the building, failed. A window on the Kearny Street side tumbled to the street below.

On the Pine Street side, another window cracked and had been reinforced. Notice of violation was issued against that building and city officials ordered full inspection of the building’s façade within 14 days.

On Mar. 21, a window on the building at 50 California broke between the 13th and 14th floors.  A notice of violation has been issued, city officials said, and the window involved has now been secured.

Also on Tuesday, at 350 Mission, 19 windows broke or cracked between the 11th and 30th floors of the Salesforce East building.

The city issued a notice of violation, requiring inspections of all the windows in 14 days. Hannan said Thursday that crews are still working to secure all the damaged panels.

Across the street, at 301 Mission, the Millennium Tower, a single window that was left open broke on 49th floor broke.  

A notice of violation has been issued for that failure, Hannan said and the window has been removed and the opening boarded up.

The latest failures followed earlier breaks at two separate California Street high-rises during recent high wind events.

“We just cannot have it raining glass in San Francisco’s downtown,” said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. “The miracle is that in these four window failures, nobody has been hurt.”

The 300 block of Mission Street remained closed Wednesday, and glass-fragments could be seen on cordoned off sections of sidewalk.

City records show that several windows cracked or broke on various floors of the Salesforce East building at 350 Mission Street. An official with Kilroy Realty, the building’s developer, did not respond to requests for comment.

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 21

Mission Street Closed After Windows Fail at Salesforce Building, Millennium Tower in High Winds

San Francisco Mar 21

Shards of Window Glass Fall From Building in San Francisco

Public documents show that the city Department of Building Inspection issued a notice of violation against the building late Tuesday, ordering that its façade be inspected within 14 days.

“An emergency response inspection has revealed broken or cracked windows (1 on each floor) between Levels 11 through 30, on Mission St elevation, presenting a hazard to pedestrians,” the notice said.

“It came down pretty hard, I thought it was just like hail and I realized afterwards that it was glass after it didn’t melt when it hit the ground,” said Edwin Young, who tells us he was walking by the Salesforce East during Tuesday’s storm.

Supervisor Peskin also says he’s calling for a hearing next month to explore ways to improve high-rise window safety. He says while some high-rise windows are regularly inspected, others are not – depending on the age of the structure. He wants the same comprehensive rules for all high-rise buildings downtown.

On Wednesday, Millennium Tower spokesman Doug Elmets confirmed that one dual paned window did break during Tuesday’s storm, but says most of the glass pieces ended up inside the unit. He conceded some may have fallen, but said the area of impact was covered by scaffolding.

That scaffolding was erected as part of the ongoing effort to fix the leaning and sinking building. “To the best of our knowledge no glass fell onto the ground,” Elmets said in a statement.

Elmets also acknowledged “the window in the condominium was not closed.” — Despite warnings to residents, from building management, to keep windows closed.

That warning was triggered by an earlier failure of an open window in high winds back in 2020. Elmets said the building has ordered replace window arms from China in response to concerns from the Department of Building Inspection about the strength of the current arms. Those concerns were raised after the earlier window failure in 2020.

Fifty arms have been replaced to date, Millennium officials say, but nearly 3,600 have yet to arrive from China to be installed.

Under the bridge is a large retaining way that helps hold up foundation along Ralston Avenue. The wall collapsed in 2021, but recently Pfeister reached out the Investigative Unit with his concerns that the Town of Hillsborough is unfairly relying on private homeowners to foot what he believes are public infrastructure repairs costs, which the town disputes.

Pfeister says the lack of action over the past year in and around his property – especially with the recent storms – have led to more damage to the foundation alongside Ralston Avenue.

Ralston Avenue is a public thruway on the Peninsula, serving as a roadway for large trucks, emergency vehicles and parents driving children to multiple schools about a half mile away from the home’s location.

In January, a geotechnical engineer the couple hired determined, “As with the bridge, the road is an unsafe condition and could allow traffic to topple into the creek channel.”  The engineer added, “the stabilization of the bridge and adjacent roadway [Ralston Avenue] is an imminent threat to the public safety…and represents an emergency repair situation.”

This is a determination town officials have disagreed with. Hillsborough’s City Manager Ann Ritzma told the couple in a February letter, “We also independently verified that the damage to the retaining wall is not placing Ralston Avenue in danger at this time.”

“It’s terrifying, right? Like we every time the storm comes through, we see more and more of the road. We see more and more of the foundation to our bridge disappear,” said Pfeister. “When this problem started, we got some estimates. They thought it was going to be around $250,000. But the recent estimates actually have gone up to over a million…It’s something that literally will bankrupt us.”

Pfeister and his wife believe the retaining wall and the related issues should be covered by the town because they say the wall predates any construction on their property. However, town officials have told them the bridge and their wall are the homeowners’ responsibility.

In that same February letter to the couple, Riztma said the Town of Hillsborough has

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit reached out to town officials multiple times. The only response our news team received was an email from Ritzma saying “The City Council met [Tuesday].  They gave direction to legal counsel to contact the homeowners legal counsel.”

“It’s shocking to me that the town is trying to push these problems back on the homeowners,” said Pfeister. “Their own poor record keeping allows them to kind of go hands off and stonewall the whole situation.”

Pfeister and Pacquin are far from the only homeowners desperate for financial help after storms pummeled the Bay Area and the state. According to FEMA, as of March 22, it’s approved 6,981 California storm disaster applications and $35,006,189 in individual and household assistance. This relief was enabled by President Joe Biden’s major disaster declaration early this year.

But you’re only eligible if the damage was caused by the late December and January storms, and the deadline to apply was March 16. FEMA says it’s currently evaluation February and March storm damage to see if additional relief will be provided.

Pfeister and his wife are appealing FEMA’s denial of their application. The agency said the home is safe to occupy. They say that’s incorrect because their family can’t get to their home without crossing a compromised bridge and crumbling foundation along Ralston Avenue.

“We wake up literally everyday for the last year and a half worried about what’s going to happen. Worried about how do we even stay here. Worried about what to do with our kids, how do we get them to finish school.

After Hillsborough yellow-tagged he bridge to their home, the family says they were forced to take their sons out of the school district and move out of Hillsborough where, according to Redfin, the median home price is $4.7 million. They are currently renting a home outside of the Bay Area.

Hillsborough officials have not responded to our inquiries about the family’s situation or safety concerns relating to Ralston Avenue.

bay area storm Mar 21

Bay Area Storm-Related Problems: Fallen Trees, Power Outages, Road Closures

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 21

Mission Street Closed After Windows Fail at Salesforce Building, Millennium Tower in High Winds

Those failures prompted the closure of a stretch of Mission Street overnight as a precaution, city officials said.

The Mission Street window failures came hours after a window blew out between the 13^th and 14^th floor of the high-rise at 50 California Street. No one was injured in that failure, but the area immediately around that building was also closed down as a precaution. That incident came a week after a 43^rd floor window failed  at the former Bank of America building at 555 California Street.  That failure also came during a massive wind storm.  

The owner of the building has since been cited and given 14 days to inspect the façade of the structure to assure it is stable.

Patrick Hannan, spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection, says teams of inspectors were on site at the 50 California building this afternoon after Tuesday’s incident. Later, they also discovered multiple cracked or failed windows between the 11^th and 30^th floors of the Salesforce East building on the Mission Street side. Hannan said that as of Tuesday night, at least one window was found to be cracked on each of those floors.

Separately, inspectors were examining one window on the 49^th floor of the Millennium Tower that had failed as of Tuesday night.

San Francisco Fire Capt. Jonathan Baxter said that fire crews, dispatched for a tree down on Mission Street, observed “issues related to the windows” at the Millennium Tower. Baxter did not have any further details, and had no information on any failed window failures at Salesforce. He confirmed the 300 block of Mission will be closed overnight as a precaution related to the failed window found at the Millennium at 301 Mission. The Salesforce is at 350 Mission.

Hannan, the building inspection department spokesman, said crews were checking all three locations doing inspections Tuesday night.

“In all three situations, we sent inspectors out for emergency response, they are evaluating the situation and coordinate with building management,” Hannan said.

The problems led Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to call for new hearings on high-rise window safety.

The Millennium Tower has had a documented history of problems with windows. The tower was cited by building inspectors back in 2020. That’s when a 41^st floor window, that had been propped open by a resident, broke free in a storm and fell to the ground. No one was injured.

The city has pushed for a redesign of the building’s window system. Meanwhile, the tower’s homeowners association has repeatedly cautioned residents to keep windows closed in windy conditions.

Editor’s note: The city of San Francisco has made a critical correction regarding a story NBC Bay Area first broke Tuesday night. The city initially said they found approximately 20 windows that had failed at the Salesforce Tower during Tuesday’s storm. The city on Wednesday morning admitted it made a mistake and issued a correction – saying the failed windows are in the smaller Salesforce East building at 350 mission, not the larger Salesforce Tower. They say there is currently no threat to the public. Mission Street remains closed between the two buildings as the city continues to investigate.

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A newly surfaced 2017 internal Veterans Affairs report shows Black veterans were more often denied benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder than their white counterparts. 

The analysis crunched claims data from fiscal year 2011 through 2016 and showed that Black veterans seeking disability benefits for PTSD were denied 57% of the time, compared to 43% for white veterans. The report emerged as part of an open records request filed by an advocacy group for Black veterans.

Terrence Hayes, a spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said the agency did not immediately have current data on a racial breakdown of PTSD disability benefits awards and said the agency “is gathering the data and will share it once fully compiled.”

Hayes wrote in an email that the agency could not comment on any ongoing litigation but that VA Secretary Denis McDonough is committed to addressing racial disparities as it relates to VA benefits.

Hayes noted that earlier this month McDonough acknowledged disparities and announced the creation of an Equity Team, telling reporters: “That team’s first order of business will be to look into disparities in grant rates to Black veterans — as well as all minority and historically underserved veterans — and eliminate them.”

Richard Brookshire, a Black veteran who served in Afghanistan as a combat medic, co-founded the Black Veterans Project in Baltimore, which filed the Freedom of Information request lawsuit. He says he’s frustrated that the government aggressively recruits Black soldiers from Black neighborhoods but that the VA is unable to share data on disparities. “If they don’t know, it’s because they don’t want to know,” he said in an interview with NBC Washington.

Brookshire said the VA initially provided him with raw data from 2002 through 2020 that was analyzed by a team at Columbia University, and the data showed disparities, but the VA did not share its 2017 analysis until he filed the FOIA lawsuit.

The 2017 analysis is significant because research has shown that minority vets had higher rates (5.8%) of PTSD than nonminority veterans (5%). Black Vietnam veterans were found to have higher rates of PTSD, in part because they were more likely to be in combat than their white counterparts.

The disparities were highlighted in a series of reports by NBC News Now and NBC local stations in a series called “American Vets: Benefits, Race and Inequality.“

Kayla Williams, a former top official at the VA, is now speaking out about what she describes as a history of unwillingness by the agency to acknowledge those disparities.

“There are some folks in VA who don’t want to look for or look at these problems,” said Williams, the former director of the Center for Women Veterans and now a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corp. “They’re worried that if disparities are found, that will harm the trust that veterans have in VA. My personal opinion is that is a little backwards.”

‘I would wake up fighting’

Ronnie Forbes, a Black veteran living in Livermore, California, enlisted in the Army in 1984 and was sent to Korea, where he was stationed in the Demilitarized Zone. He says that’s where he developed PTSD from living in a state of constant readiness. “I couldn’t sleep at night, hearing all kinds of things and anxiety attacks,” he told NBC Bay Area reporter Bigad Shaban.

In 2015 he applied to the VA for a service-connected disability claim for PTSD. Nine months later the VA turned him down. With the assistance of advocacy groups, he appealed the VA’s decision multiple times and received retroactive approval last month, seven years after his initial denial.  

Forbes told Shaban that he believes racism played a role in his yearslong pursuit of PTSD benefits. “I dealt with it in the military and now outside of the military,” he said. “As a veteran, I’m dealing with the same issues through this appeal process.”

Conley Monk Jr., 74, from Connecticut, served as a Marine in Vietnam and says he remains haunted by a gruesome incident in which a fellow Marine drove over a Vietnamese man right in front of him. He says he was unaware at the time that this incident and the violence he witnessed in Vietnam had contributed to his PTSD. “Ever since I came back from Vietnam, I knew that I had a problem, but I didn’t know what it was. I knew that every time I would get angry as someone would put their hands on me, that I would react, and it would get me in trouble.”

Monk says after his service in Vietnam, he was transferred to Okinawa, where he had two altercations that he attributes in part to a “constant state of fear and hypervigilance,” according to court documents.

He told NBC Connecticut reporter Kyle Jones in Hartford that he often slept poorly. “You know, my sisters, or brothers, anyone put their hands on me, I would wake up fighting. So I knew I had a problem. But I didn’t know the name of it.”

He says after the altercations in Okinawa, he agreed to an “undesirable discharge” but did not understand that it could negatively affect his eligibility for VA benefits. Monk says it took 40 years for his discharge to be reversed.

In early March, Secretary McDonough said the agency was “wrestling with disparities based on race in VA benefits decisions and military discharge status.”

Forbes told Shaban that he’s grateful the department is acknowledging that they fell short. “I’m kind of relieved that they are owning up to what it is that’s going on. That’s kind of a relief for me.” he said. “Now we know what the problem is. Now let’s work on the solution.”

This article was reported by Lucy Bustamante at NBC Philadelphia, Kyle Jones and Katherine Loy at NBC Connecticut, Tracee Wilkins and Rick Yarborough at NBC Washington, Bigad Shaban and Michael Bott at NBC Bay Area, Mark Mullen and Mike Dorfman at NBC San Diego, Noreen O’Donnell for NBCU Local, and Laura Strickler of the NBC News Investigative Unit.

discover black heritage Feb 28

Benefits Denied: Older Black Veterans Battle for GI Education and Housing Compensation, Disability Payments

discover black heritage Mar 3

VA Forms Committee to Examine Disparities in Military Benefits Based on Race

A lot has changed around the neighborhood since then, but Wong and his wife Cathi have been fixtures. They’ve lived in the same apartment for the past forty years, their two kids now grown and out of the house. The building sits right next door to the home Ben and his family moved into back in 1960.

“We love the neighborhood, we love the people,” said Cathi Wong. “I mean, he’s known about half a dozen of the neighbors on this block for 60 years.”

Now, in their 70s, Ben and Cathi Wong find themselves hanging onto the neighborhood by a thread, caught in a battle to stave off an eviction and stay in the home they never imagined leaving.

San Francisco Mar 16

Proposed Floating Pool for San Francisco Bay Gets Legislative Boost

INVESTIGATIVE Mar 16

Inspection Order Expanded for San Francisco High-Rise Where 43rd Floor Window Fell

The eviction notice came in October 2021, posted on their front door. According to the notice, their landlords were invoking the Ellis Act, signaling their intent to pull the apartment off the rental market.

But the Wongs and their attorney allege the eviction is direct retaliation for challenging decades of unpermitted rent hikes after recently discovering their building fell under the city’s rent control laws.

“We don’t want to go down without saying anything, without fighting back,” Ben Wong said. “You see so many renters getting thrown out.”

The Wongs were supposed to be out by last October, but they opted to stay and contest the eviction in court.

“We think a jury will view this as retaliatory and they won’t view the landlord’s stated intent as really being bona fide or sincere,” said Steve Collier, the managing attorney at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, who is representing Ben and Cathi Wong in their eviction case.

NBC Bay Area reached out to the property owners several times through their attorneys, but never got a response.

For decades, the Wongs say pricey annual rent increases kept rolling in, despite having landlords they allege rarely fixed anything in the ancient apartment. Taking NBC Bay Area on a tour, the couple point out a leaky drainpipe, a large hole in their closet wall, water-damaged floorboards, and a heater they say hasn’t worked in decades.

“It’s as cold as it gets, it’s like being outside,” Cathi Wong said. “There’s no insulation whatsoever. The place is 123 years old and there have been no capital improvements. They do very minimal maintenance.”

Then came 2019, and with it, another 7% rent increase. It raised their monthly payment to more than $2,100 a month, up from $550 when they first moved in.

Paying was becoming a struggle for the retired couple on a fixed income. So, they started researching what rights they had as tenants, and made a major discovery: Their building falls under the city’s rent control laws.

“We thought, ‘Woah, they’ve been doing this for 28 years,’” Cathi Wong said. “I felt a little foolish. We never questioned it.”

According to the Wongs, their landlord never disclosed the building was subject to rent control.

“They had over $90,000 in illegal rent increases over the years,” Collier said.

The Wongs soon came to a written agreement with their landlords that rolled their rent back to $550 a month and paid them nearly $28,000 in exchange for releasing any claims for “illegal rent increases or overpayment of rent” by the tenants.

“We signed in good faith, thinking, ‘Okay, that’s alright, we’ll just take that,’” Ben Wong said.

 But the victory was short-lived. Just weeks later, the Wongs say, a process server came to the door bearing news of a massive new rent increase.

“It was a rent increase of almost 80% of what we were currently paying,” Cathi Wong said.

Collier and the Wongs say they successfully challenged the rent increase. But it proved yet another temporary victory, because the eviction notice came in 2021.

“We don’t know where we’re going to go or how we’re going to pay for it because we’re on a fixed income,” Ben Wong said. “We’re seniors now. We’re not young anymore.”

They say losing their rent controlled apartment would likely mean being forced out of San Francisco. It’s just too expensive, they say.

“It added up to where I was feeling all this stress that I didn’t even realize I was having,” Cathi Wong said.

Three months later, Cathi suffered a heart attack as the couple laid in bed.

“I was talking to an operator, but doing compressions at the same time,” said Ben Wong, who’s still haunted by the memory. “And I just kept saying, ‘She’s not breathing, she’s not breathing.’”

Cathi credits her husband for saving her life by immediately starting CPR.

“I guess that was the most traumatic time in our lives,” she said.

After fighting for Cathi’s life, the Wongs are back to fighting their landlords, awaiting a court date for the eviction case. 

In the meantime, they’ve started packing 40 years of belongings into boxes just in case.

“It’s an ordeal to fight, but we feel up to it,” Cathi Wong said.

One inspection photo released by the Department of Building Inspection shows several remaining chunks of glass inside the frame where the one window broke out Tuesday. Other photos show another window around the corner has been reinforced.  Authorities say that window also cracked. It is not clear if the crack authorities identified preexisted the incident or was triggered when the first window failed Tuesday.

Building officials issued an immediate notice of violation on Tuesday stemming from the cracked and falling glass.  Nobody was injured in the building or on the street below.

San Francisco Mar 15

SF Orders All Windows in High-Rise Building Inspected After One Shattered and Fell

San Francisco Mar 14

Window Pane Blown Off From SF High-Rise Building

On Wednesday, inspectors ordered the owners of 555 California Street to inspect all of the windows in the 52-story structure to assure they’re safe. But that inspection order was expanded Thursday to require that the high-rise’s “exterior facades (be) surveyed by a California licensed architect or engineer to ensure stability of all facade elements.”

Since the photos were taken, the window that broke and a cracked window around the corner of the building have been reinforced with plywood.

Building inspectors went to the site on both Tuesday and Wednesday, records show, which also indicate replacement windows have been ordered.

The building is owned by Vornado Realty Trust, along with a minority ownership by former president Donald Trump. Vornado officials have declined to comment.  

Cell phone video taken from a neighboring building showed some of the glass falling. No one was injured on the ground, but the video shows several pedestrians were in the area.

A second window next door in the 52-story former Bank of America building was determined to be cracked as of late Tuesday. The city ordered that window secured, according to the violation notice issued by the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection.

According to a notation in the complaint file in the case notes logged on Wednesday, the city building inspector spoke to the building engineer and was informed that DBI also “requires a survey report of the building facade, to ensure all glass panels are secure.”

Officials with Vornado Realty Trust, the majority owner of the building, declined to comment about the matter Wednesday. Former President Donald Trump is also a part owner of the building, one of the city’s tallest.

San Francisco Mar 14

Window Pane Blown Off From SF High-Rise Building Prompts Shelter-in-Place Order

San Francisco Mar 14

San Francisco Board Open to Reparations With $5M Payouts

The case stems from a Feb. 1, 2022 alleged attack outside the Oakland home of firefighter Gabriel Shin. Robert Muhammad has entered a not guilty plea to charges of assault with great bodily injury in the attack that left Shin with a broken arm and a concussion.

The assault, according to the suit, was sparked by an unspecified workplace grievance. Afterward, the suit alleges, the fire department went after Shin, not Muhammad.

The suit alleges that Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson was involved in the campaign – saying she and her staff “went to astonishing lengths to protect the attacker and to punish an innocent firefighter who was almost killed.” The chief, the suit alleges, continues to allow Muhammad to work.

Muhammad’s criminal attorney, James Bustamante, told us he had not read the civil lawsuit.

“I have heard generally what it alleges,” Bustamante said. “All I can say is my client is one of the nicest human beings you’ll ever meet and a solid firefighter.”

“Whatever happened off duty is an unfortunate event for all involved. Any civil suit arising from the incident is unjustified.”

San Francisco Feb 25

4 Displaced by Residential Fire in SF's Sunnydale District

San Francisco Feb 17

Judge Allows Restrictive House Detention for Suspect in Deadly SF Home Explosion, Fire

According to Shin’s federal lawsuit, Muhammad had a “history of threatening, bullying, and aggressive behavior” for more than a decade.

The suit alleges “High-ranking SFFD officials knew of this history yet failed to take any corrective action” to deal with Muhammad’s “dangerous volatility” towards other firefighters.

Before coming to Shin’s home, Muhammad allegedly threatened Shin and others, according to the suit. It also alleges Shin alerted department management to those threats.

Muhammad was allowed to remain on duty, however. According to the suit, Muhammad looked up Shin’s address in the department’s personnel database and took a 15-inch-long brass spanner wrench to Shin’s home on Feb. 1 of last year.

According to the suit, Shin said he was sweeping the sidewalk with neighbors that day when Muhammad came up from behind and confronted him.

“I’m going to give you a chance to save yourself,” Muhammad told Shin, according to the suit.

When Shin put the broom down and refused to fight, the suit alleges the taller, younger Muhammad swung the spanner at his head.

Shin said he broke his arm fending off the attack that left him with a concussion and other injuries. The suit goes on to say Shin was spared further injury only because an armed bystander yelled out to intervene.

According to the suit, Fire Chief Nicholson failed to act against Muhammad, and instead ordered Shin to stay away from him. Later, according to the suit: “Chief Nicholson and her deputies went so far as to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation to cover up the violent crime perpetrated against Firefighter Shin.”

The suit states department officials refused to provide Oakland police with a photo of Muhammad so they could prepare an arrest warrant.

“Without that information from the SFFD, the police department could not quickly identify Defendant Muhammad, including because of the number of people who share the same name,” the suit alleges.

The suit also alleges the department engaged in a “concerted effort to pressure” Shin to stop cooperating with investigators. The suit says one supervisor contacted Shin the day after, asking him if “we could work something out” in lieu of criminal charges.

After Shin refused, the suit alleges another supervisor issued a “direct order to end his cooperation” with the Oakland police probe. When he went to the chief, the suit states she “did not offer to take any corrective action to stop SFFD witness and victim intimidation.”

“When firefighter Shin resisted the hostile pressure and direct order from SFFD superior officers to cease cooperation with the criminal investigation against defendant Muhammad,” according to the suit. “Chief Nicholson punished Firefighter Shin by stripping him of his compensation and taking away his health insurance before the broken bones in his arm had even set.”

The Fire Department referred questions about the matter to the City Attorney’s office, which said it’s reviewing the allegations in the federal complaint and will respond in court.