{"id":88342,"date":"2025-12-09T23:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/88342\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:57:15","slug":"s-f-taps-outside-firm-to-review-security-lapses-in-hospital-stabbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/88342\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. taps outside firm to review security lapses in hospital stabbing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Francisco Department of Public Health will commission a third-party review of security lapses at General Hospital and across the entire department in the wake of last week\u2019s fatal stabbing<\/a> of 51-year-old social worker Alberto Rangel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Department of Public Health director Daniel Tsai today committed to \u201cretaining an independent security firm\u201d to conduct a study on the circumstances that led to Rangel\u2019s killing. Rangel was allegedly stabbed to death<\/a> by Wilfredo Tortolero-Arriechi, a 34-year-old patient whom multiple hospital workers had reported as dangerous<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tortolero-Arriechi was charged with murder, alongside other charges, by the district attorney\u2019s office on Monday.<\/p>\n

The firm will also undertake a larger \u201csystemwide review\u201d of security at the hospital and its outpatient clinics, like Ward 86, the long-time HIV\/AIDS clinic where the lethal Dec. 4 attack occurred.<\/p>\n

The review comes over a year after nurses called for an investigation into lapsed security at San Francisco General but were largely rebuffed by the state, according to a 2024 complaint addressed to the California department responsible for workplace safety.<\/p>\n

That complaint, written by nurse practitioner Heather Bollinger to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, c<\/a>ited a lack of adequate protection including \u201cno security present\u201d on campus.<\/p>\n

The nurse\u2019s union called for additional safety precautions \u201cto reduce workplace violence\u201d on Feb. 8, 2024. Their proposal to add security guards, cameras, and metal detectors at every hospital entrance was rejected on May 2, 2024, according to union records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additional proposals to keep \u201ccrash carts,\u201d mobile carts carrying essential emergency supplies, at outpatient clinics such as Ward 86 were also rejected, say union sources. Hospital staff say there were no crash carts present when Rangel was stabbed, delaying life-saving aid. \u201cEMS arrived so late,\u201d said Jessica Hoopengardner, a Ward 86 nurse.<\/p>\n

Bollinger\u2019s complaint to the California health and safety department listed the following allegations: \u201cno security present,\u201d \u201cclinical staffing insufficient at psychiatric emergency services,\u201d and \u201cprocedural changes to workplace violence protocols were not communicated to staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint also listed an incident in which a nurse was \u201ckicked in the face\u201d and a patient was found with a weapon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state issued a response, dated February 2025. It wrote only that the worksite was inspected and \u201cone general citation was issued addressing screening, staffing, and security.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nine months after that, Rangel was attacked. He died two days later.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Abigail Van Neely <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco Department of Public Health will commission a third-party review of security lapses at General Hospital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,29839,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-88342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-general-hospital","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}