Residents of San Francisco, California, are outraged that prostitution has gotten so bad in one neighborhood that a bystander was able to record suspected sex workers fighting in the middle of the day.
The woman who recorded the video spoke to KRON-TV but wanted to stay anonymous. She said the video came from outside her residence on Shotwell Street in the Mission District.
“I look out my window and see two women beating up another woman. Based on how they were dressed, it was clear to me that they were prostitutes,” said the woman.
“I see them grabbing the woman by the hair and throwing her to the ground. They are kicking her,” she added. “At one point, a woman is sitting on her. Then she kicks her very hard in the head.”
The woman said she went down to check on the victim.
“Apparently the fight began because she was in her car and the girls were looking in her car. Then they got into a verbal conflict and when the woman got out of the car, the women beat her up,” the woman told KRON.
The San Francisco Police Department said they were able to find a 24-year-old person who matched the description of the attacker and arrested her. She was booked on suspicion of aggravated assault.
The witness said she was shocked because the incident was so brazen.
“Shotwell Street has a problem with sex work, but I’m not used to seeing that during the day so that was surprising,” she added.
The woman went on to say that prostitution in the neighborhood has been a problem for more than a decade and police have done little to prevent the issue.
“There’s some violence associated with prostitution, there’s fights. There are pimps fighting over girls,” she said. “Johns throwing girls out of cars. We’ve tried to address this for 10 years and police say we’re understaffed. It’s not a high priority for us.”
A conflicting report from KTVU-TV said that the woman attacked was not a prostitute but a homeless woman
Residents in the area started a petition to demand license plate readers that would help police capture prostitutes, their pimps, and the clients who seek them out.
Democratic Mayor London Breed’s office released a statement over the furor.
“All options are on the table, including the strategic placement of public safety cameras, street and other physical environment changes, and of course, increased enforcement as well,” she said.
The median single-family home in the Mission District sells for more than a million dollars, according to Redfin.
Here’s the bizarre video:
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