A video shows a San Francisco police officer on Mayor Daniel Lurie’s security detail shove a man before a struggle.
Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle
A man who slammed a member of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s security detail to the ground on Thursday was jailed on suspicion of assault. But newly revealed video footage of the altercation shows that the bodyguard, a San Francisco police officer, forcefully shoved the man backward and to the ground — as Lurie stood just a few feet away — before both continued in the struggle.
The footage shows an earlier part of the altercation than videos circulated about the incident on Thursday night, adding context to what city police have described as an attack on Lurie’s staffer by 44-year-old Tony Shervaughn Phillips at Cedar and Larkin streets in the Tenderloin.
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The 90-second clip, reviewed by the Chronicle and posted on social media, is shot from a bird’s-eye view, showing the officer and Phillips briefly conversing before the violence breaks out. The beginning of the interaction is not captured and there is no audio.
Phillips, seen in a light-colored jacket, is shown approaching the bodyguard. He appears to try to step around him, toward Lurie. The officer, who has not been identified, then pushes Phillips with both hands, the force sending Phillips to the curb several feet away. Within moments, the two begin to fight.
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Lurie watched some of the encounter with his hands in his pockets before walking away as it intensified, appearing to be trying to summon help.
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Lurie’s office declined to comment on the new video, citing the pending investigation. A police spokesperson said the department would not add to comments it already issued about the incident.
Another man was also arrested in connection with the incident, but his identity was not immediately clear. The mayor was unharmed, and the bodyguard suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Images from the scene showed him with a wound on the back of his head.
The video raises the specter that the mayor could now be a key witness in multiple criminal and a potential use-of-force investigation.
“Regardless of your title or if you’re a city employee, you’re a witness in that case and should provide a statement in any investigative process,” said Art Acevedo, a former president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and who, as chief, led four large city police departments including the Houston Police Department. “Whatever he saw, needs to be documented for any criminal or administrative processes, or any potential civil litigation if any legal claim is made against the city.”
Lurie said earlier Friday that the incident started after he saw two people standing “in the middle of the street” and he stopped to see what was going on and ask them to move.
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The mayor told reporters gathered in his office at City Hall that he felt compelled to respond.
“I feel like the people who are on our streets are part of my business,” Lurie told reporters. “I was worried about them, and I was worried about (the) safety of pedestrians and cars coming.”
Lurie said he didn’t flee the scene, but instead went to get a second bodyguard who was in the car in which the mayor had been traveling.
“I wanted to make sure that he had heard the call from the officer that was engaged with the person on the street,” Lurie said. “So I went to get him, and he came to support the (first) officer. That officer is much better trained than I am. And they were willing and able to do what they did.”
Lurie confirmed that one of the bodyguards “sustained an injury to the head” but was “doing well.”
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“I want to thank my entire detail for the incredible work they do every single day, and last night,” Lurie said.
It’s still unclear what caused the fight. Lurie said he wouldn’t go into detail about the incident, citing the ongoing police investigation.
“We are grateful that the officers assigned to the mayor’s security detail acted swiftly and courageously to protect him in a dangerous and unpredictable situation,” Louis Wong, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said in a statement.
Phillips was booked into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of several criminal counts, including assaulting a peace officer with force likely to cause great bodily injury, threatening an officer, battering an officer and possessing drug paraphernalia.
Phillips was previously arrested on suspicion of murder in August 2019 for allegedly fighting with and stabbing a man on Fern Alley near Van Ness Avenue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood. Curtis Neal, a 42-year-old city resident, died after being taken to a hospital.
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The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office declined to charge Phillips in that case, citing insufficient evidence, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Del Seymour, a Tenderloin activist, told the Chronicle he recognized the man arrested in connection with Thursday’s assault from around the neighborhood.
“He does have some issues that are different from you and I,” Seymour said. “He has his good days, and he has his bad days.”
Seymour said he had seen Phillips, whom he recognized in photographs published by news outlets Friday morning, “in confrontational situations” before.
“He is a model of maybe a thousand people in the Tenderloin,” Seymour added. “It’s nothing unique.”
The Tenderloin and its denizens are all too accustomed to these kinds of violent interactions, Seymour said.
“He could care less who they were, but they were probably in his space,” he said of Phillips.
Chronicle staff writers Alyce McFadden and Michael Barba contributed to this report.