ARRESTED gallery owner who hosed down distraught homeless woman sitting outside his shop

A business owner who went viral after he was filmed spraying a homeless woman with a hose in front of his San Francisco store has been arrested for assault, hours after the city attorney said he would face charges for the widely seen incident.

Collier Gwin, owner of the Foster Gwin art gallery, is currently in custody on the misdemeanor charge stemming from the Jan. 9 altercation, police said Wednesday after his arrest.

Earlier in the day, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office released a statement announcing that a warrant had been issued for Gwin’s arrest, following a public outcry uttered over the footage, which was filmed on a day when temperatures reached 49 degrees.

The video posted on social media prompted detectives to successfully search for and identify the gallery owner, and served as a enough evidence to charge Gwin, authorities said after his arrest Wednesday night.

If convicted of the crime, Gwin could face up to six months in county jail, as well as a $2,000 fine.

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“The alleged assault on a homeless member of our community is completely unacceptable,” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said, referencing footage showing the store owner nonchalantly spraying the unidentified woman with a squirt. of water.

Jenkins went on to reveal that the victim did not seek to press charges against the store owner, who defended his actions in interviews with various news outlets in recent days, saying that when he asked the woman to move, she became belligerent and he refused.

Nonetheless, Jenkins said on Wednesday: ‘Mr. Gwin will face the appropriate consequences for his actions.

The state attorney, who has come under fire for soft policies on crime in a city experiencing crime rates and homelessness not seen since the 1990s, went on to reprimand citizens who have vandalized Gwin’s store, whose door was broken while the images spread through social networks.

“The vandalism of the Foster Gwin Gallery is also completely unacceptable and must stop,” the prosecutor wrote, before telling citizens in the city filled with homeless encampments: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Records show Gwin was arrested around 3:30 p.m. on or near his gallery. In recent days, as armchair detectives zeroed in on the store owner, Gwin made it clear that he wasn’t hiding from anyone.

But even after explaining himself to outlets like The San Francisco Chronicle and ABC 7, others lLocal businesses condemned his actions, while dozens of angry social media users left terrible reviews online, causing the gallery’s Google rating to drop to a single star.

Speaking of the incident earlier this week, Gwin, without apologizing, cited the city’s widely reported homelessness situation as an inciting factor for the incident.

“I’ve been here for 40 years,” Gwin told The Chronicle. We have tons of homeless people. [people]. But they haven’t been in a situation where they get that violent. [within] 10 days in the neighborhood trying to do something.

“We have managed to get them to take them to a shelter, from which they leave immediately.”

The reporter in the video said, “I heard her talking to people and saying, ‘No, this is the way I want to live. My idea of ​​clean is not your idea of ​​clean.'”

Gwin replied, “That’s fine, as long as you know what you’re saying.”

After admitting that he was the man from the hose video, Gwin claimed that the woman had gone psychotic and was rummaging through trash cans.

“I said you have to move, I can’t clean the street, move down,” Gwin told The San Francisco Chronicle.

“She starts yelling belligerent things, spitting, yelling at me… at that point she was so out of control… I sprayed her with the hose and said, ‘Move, move. I’ll help you.'”

He also noted that he has previously been a ‘champ’ for trying to help her.

The Brioche Cafe chef, who captured the video, said he saw the scene unfold while making an early morning delivery around 6 a.m.

“I was surprised,” Edson Garcia told The Chronicle. I know that lady.

Since then, the video has amassed millions of views. But despite the widespread backlash, Gwin stuck to his actions.

“You know, spraying her isn’t the solution, but spraying her was something that woke her up and calmed her down,” Gwin said.

‘So I’m sorry? I’m only sorry that… my way of helping her countlessly hasn’t achieved anything.’

Gwin added that before the incident he allowed her to stay on the sidewalk for days and tried to call the police and other government services to get their help.

His art gallery has been in business since 1984 and has attracted A-list clients such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to SocketSite.

The gallery shares a wall with a restaurant called the Barbarossa Lounge, which is where Gwin is seen leaning against a door in the video.

Internet detectives seeking to identify the perpetrator initially assumed that Gwin was associated with the restaurant. But the owner, Arash Ghanadan, discredited the claim when mountains of hate mail poured in.

“Barbarossa Lounge has become aware of a video that started circulating on social media, which was filmed outside our small business,” Ghanadan told DailyMail.com.

We are extremely disappointed in this individual’s behavior and do not in any way support such actions. We have been informed that further formal and media investigations are underway.”

Ghanadan added: ‘It’s been a difficult time for our business in the last three years with a pandemic. We barely survived that and now our reputation is being ruined by a video that everyone falsely assumes relates to our business.”

The video comes amid a growing homelessness crisis in the city. The number of homeless people in San Francisco was counted in February at nearly 8,000, the second-highest number of any year since 2005, according to the official government count that is done every three years.

Business owners in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood have threatened to stop paying taxes if politicians don’t start clearing the streets of litter and stopping people from openly using drugs.

In a letter to city officials in August, the Castro Merchants Association said some of the homeless people on the streets in front of their stores had been harassing customers and needed help.

“They need shelter and/or services and they need them immediately,” the Traders Association said.

‘Our community is struggling to recover from lost business income, theft and endless vandalism/graffiti (often by homeless people) and we implore you to take action.’