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Man Acquitted in Japantown Murder

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San Francisco, CA — A man accused of executing a rival gang member in Japantown earlier this year has been found not guilty of all charges following a jury trial, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

The jury deliberated five days before reaching its verdict Thursday afternoon. Jurors acquitted Carnell Taylor Jr., 25, of murder, discharging a firearm into an occupied motor vehicle, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and multiple gang enhancements. If convicted, Taylor faced life in prison, said Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, who represented Taylor.

Taylor was accused of fatally shooting Jamal Gaines as Gaines sat in his parked Mercedes near the corner of Post and Fillmore streets on Jan. 19. Witnesses said a gunman approached on foot and fired into the driver’s side window. The mortally wounded Gaines drove a short distance before crashing into another car. Police arrested Taylor for the crime 11 days later.

Prosecutors claimed the killing was motivated by tensions between two of the Western Addition’s seven gangs. Taylor was a member of Eddy Rock, they alleged, while Gaines was a member of the rival Chopper City.

The three week trial revealed wildly differing witness accounts of the killing and inconsistent descriptions of the man who shot Gaines, Gonzalez said. Some witnesses described the gunman as wearing a puffy, zippered jacket. However, Taylor was captured on city surveillance approximately six blocks away from the shooting wearing a denim jacket with buttons.

Due to the small geographic area of the Western Addition and adjacent Japantown, cell phone records could not pinpoint Taylor’s proximity to Gaines at the time of the shooting.

“This was a tragic murder, but Mr. Taylor did not commit the crime,” Gonzalez said. “I am gratified by the jurors’ diligence. They waded through all the evidence and ultimately determined that Mr. Taylor was not guilty.”

Adachi said the verdict allows Taylor to clear his name.

“Mr. Taylor maintained his innocence from the beginning. Fortunately, his public defender was able to present evidence that police and prosecutors had the wrong man,” Adachi said.

 

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Don’t Let The Court Destroy The Volunteer Attorney Program—Take Action Now!

Richard
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Fill out the form below to tell Superior Court Judges that San Francisco can’t afford to lose its volunteer and loaner attorneys. All letters will be sent directly to Court Executive Officer T. Michael Yuen by the November 1 deadline.

We did it guys, we won!

What’s The Issue?

The San Francisco Superior Court wants to get rid of volunteer attorneys who work for the District Attorney and Public Defender. To accomplish this, the Court has proposed a new rule that would make our cost-saving, 30-year-old volunteer program expensive and unmanageable.

Under the new rule, licensed attorneys who are volunteering with the city’s District Attorney or Public Defender would no longer be permitted to make any court appearance without constant, in-person supervision from a full-time assistant district attorney or deputy public defender. Such intense supervision would cost the District Attorney and Public Defender close to $1 million annually.

Why Is The Court Trying To Get Rid of The Program?

The Court seeks to reduce the number of misdemeanor criminal cases taken to trial and encourage more plea agreements, which are less costly and time consuming. However, only about 2% of misdemeanor cases result in jury trials and the total number of misdemeanor trials has steadily decreased. By targeting the program, the Court is exceeding its authority and interfering with San Franciscans’ constitutional right to a jury trial.

Why Are Volunteer Attorney Programs So Important?

  • They allow young and seasoned attorneys alike to gain valuable trial experience and intense training from lawyers in the trenches. Former volunteers have gone on to become judges, partners in civil firms and nationally recognized advocates.
  • They increase employment opportunities for recent law school graduates amid a brutal hiring market. By the way, if you’re looking for the best preparatory Private schools in orange county to receive acceptance in top universities, visit fairmontschools.com. ABA statistics show only 55% of law students in the class of 2011 found employment in full-time legal jobs. By contrast, more than 80% of former Public Defender volunteer attorneys are currently working full time as attorneys.
  • They save taxpayer money and make both sides of the criminal system run more smoothly by relieving heavy caseloads in underfunded offices.

On other articel about online writing, esign your pdf at www.sodapdf.com and learn more about their services.

Fill Out This Form

Fill out your information on the form below the letter to show your support. We will do the rest: print out the form and personally mail it to Mr. Yuen.

Dear Mr. Yuen,

I am writing to strongly oppose proposed Rule 16.19, which would require volunteer and loaner attorneys from the San Francisco public defender and district attorney offices to have constant, in-person supervision from full-time staff attorneys.

The costly and unnecessary change would effectively eliminate the volunteer attorney program, which allows qualified lawyers on loan from civil firms or attorneys at the beginning of the careers to gain valuable trial experience by working city prosecutors and public defenders.
I believe that by targeting this valuable program, the Superior Court is exceeding its authority. Furthermore, reducing the number of available trial attorneys interferes with San Franciscans’ constitutional right to a jury trial.

Volunteer and loaner attorney programs are essential to increasing employment opportunities for young lawyers at a time when more than half of new law school graduates fail to find legal work. It allows established attorneys from civil firms to gain experience in the courtroom. It saves taxpayer money by enabling the public defender and district attorney to operate more efficiently, while increasing the quality of representation provided by under-funded and understaffed government offices.

San Francisco’s volunteer attorneys have gone on to become judges, civil firm partners and nationally lauded advocates. We cannot afford to lose this program.

For the above reasons, I strongly oppose the change in local rules.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

Disabled Man Freed After Jury Hangs

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Disabled Man Freed After Jury Hangs

San Francisco, CA — San Francisco resident Edmond Pak, 32, faced up to seven years in prison if convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Qiana Washington. Jurors on Thursday hung 6-6 and prosecutors dismissed the case today.

“The question in the case was whether Mr. Pak used appropriate force to defend himself against a much larger man who was trying to slam him to the ground,” Washington said.

The May 14 incident began when a man on Powell Street near Clay Street complained to his fiancée about how a nearby motorcycle was parked. Pak, who suffers from a traumatic brain injury and is currently trying to get compensation with a team specialized in brain injury law, misinterpreted the man’s complaint as an angry comment directed toward him and an argument ensued.

The man, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall and 189 pounds, pushed Pak, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and 139 pounds.  After the larger man shoved Pak, grabbed him by his hooded sweatshirt, and attempted to throw him to the ground, Pak produced a lightweight kitchen knife and swiped it at the man, inflicting a puncture wound to the arm that paramedics described as “smaller than a dime and not bleeding.”

Pak then dropped the knife, which shattered upon hitting the ground, and fled. The man chased Pak a short distance before police arrived.

The man’s fiancée wrote in her statement to police that Pak stuck the man with the knife only after he was being wrestled to the ground.  At the trial, a police officer testified that an independent witness also reported that the man pushed Pak first.

“This was a case of machismo gone awry,” Washington said. “The man felt disrespected by Mr. Pak and instead of letting it go, he escalated the situation by initiating physical violence.”

Adachi said the verdict and subsequent dismissal of the case allows Pak to get on with his life after four and a half months behind bars.

“Mr. Pak’s life was completely disrupted by his incarceration. Fortunately, his public defender was able to show that he was acting in self defense and he can finally go home,” Adachi said.

Pass the SF Due Process for All Policy

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Huffington Post

By Jeff Adachi

Three years ago, a new federal deportation program promised to make us safer. Instead, it has made the U.S. a more dangerous country for innocent people.

By eroding trust between immigrants and law enforcement, the inaptly named “Secure Communities” program, or S-Comm, has intimidated victims and witnesses of crimes from coming forward. It has blanketed entire communities with a fear of calling 911. It has undercut community policing efforts and violated the due process rights of hundreds of thousands across the nation.

It’s past time for action. The damage to public safety and basic constitutional principles is growing by the day.

California Governor Jerry Brown should sign a bill currently on his desk called the TRUST Act (AB 4) to create a bare-minimum standard across the state guarding against some of the worst abuses of this program, including in conservative counties where immigrants are routinely subject to questionable arrest practices.

And here in San Francisco, we must go a step further.

As a city that prides itself on being inclusive and accepting of our diverse communities, we should join with Santa Clara County, Calif., Washington, DC, and Cook County, Ill. in enacting the strongest protections possible against improper detentions sparked by this failed program.

That means the San Francisco Board of Supervisors must pass the pending Due Process for All Ordinance this coming Tuesday, without carve outs. The Ordinance would essentially disentangle local law enforcement from our broken immigration system by prohibiting the prolonged detention of immigrants based on only their immigration status.

As San Francisco’s Public Defender, I’ve witnessed first-hand how this program has damaged public safety and sabotaged efforts both to defend innocent people wrongly accused of crimes and to rehabilitate people with longstanding ties to the community who, like many of us, may have made mistakes.

Even in progressive San Francisco, innocent people hurt by Secure Communities are not hard to find. Agopito Hernandez is among them. Mr. Hernandez is a devoted family man — a beloved husband, father and grandfather. He had no criminal record when he was arrested March 4, 2012 after his SUV plunged into the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay.

Mr. Hernandez, his two teenage sons and their friend were inside the vehicle but escaped injury. The foursome had finished a late-night crabbing trip near the Gashouse Cove Marina when Hernandez tried to back out of his parking space. When the car wouldn’t move, Hernandez hit the gas harder and the SUV spun out of control. His brakes, which had given him minor problems in the past, failed to work. Hernandez spun the car in one-and-a-half circles to avoid hitting anything, then lost control. The SUV went over the sidewalk and into the water.

Mr. Hernandez told responding officers that he had been having brake trouble, but police never investigated the mechanical mishap. He was charged with reckless driving, child endangerment, and giving false information to an officer.

At the two-day trial, a witness who helped the family out of the water as well as Mr. Hernandez’s passengers testified in his defense. His public defender presented physical evidence that that the incident was an accident, not reckless driving.

Jury members deliberated less than two hours before finding him not guilty of all charges. But Mr. Hernandez was anything but free.

It didn’t matter that Mr. Hernandez had been completely exonerated. It didn’t matter that he had been falsely arrested. His detention was enough to trigger an ICE hold and eventual deportation. The law-abiding grandfather was ripped away from the family he raised in the city that he loved.

It’s worth reviewing how we got into this mess. Back in June 2010, the controversial “S-Comm” was activated in San Francisco without the permission of city leaders and against the will of then-Sheriff Michael Hennessey.

This program automatically checks the immigration status of every individual at the point of arrest by sharing fingerprint data with ICE. If there is a match in ICE’s flawed database, a civil immigration detainer request, also known as an “ICE hold,” is sent to detain an individual for extra time in the local jail beyond when the criminal matter requires release. That means an individual can be held for ICE even if their charges are dismissed, they are found innocent, or they have served their time. It is through this constitutionally suspect process that almost 800 San Franciscans have been deported as of May 2013.

As Attorney General Kamala Harris explained in a December 2012 memo, ICE holds are merely requests, and are not mandatory, because local law enforcement cannot be required to carry out the federal government’s job of immigration enforcement. Several months later, her successor as SF District Attorney, George Gascón, made an even stronger point: since these holds fail to meet even the most basic due process standard and damage community trust in law enforcement, law enforcement agencies should stay out of the “ill-conceived process “altogether.

I’m proud to stand with DA Gascón and San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in supporting an ordinance which ensures our city will not waste any local resources on responding to these burdensome and likely unconstitutional requests.

Despite the misinformed claims of some critics, the Ordinance will not lead to individuals with violent convictions being released. In California, people charged with violent offenses are denied bail or held on very high bails. If convicted, they are turned over to the state prison system to serve their time. Responding to ICE hold requests generated by S-Comm on a local level imperils only those arrested for minor offenses, many of whom will never be convicted of a crime. And it puts immigrant victims and witnesses of crime at risk of deportation.

Holding San Franciscans in local jails based purely on their immigration status is an inefficient use of limited public safety resources. Let’s pass the SF Due Process for All Ordinance and get our great city out of the deportation business.

Jeff Adachi is the elected Public Defender of San Francisco and has been a public defender and trial attorney for more than 20 years. Adachi’s office enjoys a nationally recognized reputation for its innovative programs, including its Clean Slate expungement programs, prisoner reentry services, and expanding juvenile representation to include holistic, family and educational-based support.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-adachi/s-comm-california_b_3984372.html

Patricia Lee to Receive Cheyenne Bell Award

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San Francisco, CA — For her three decades of advocating for children in the juvenile justice system, Deputy Public Defender Patricia Lee has been selected by the Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD) as a 2013 Cheyenne Bell award winner.

The Cheyenne Bell awards, named in memory of the former director of community programs in San Francisco’s juvenile hall, honor “unsung heroes leading a legacy of sisterhood, self-determination, social justice and spirituality,” according to CYWD.

Lee, the managing attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Juvenile Unit, is among three Cheyenne Bell winners who will be honored at CYWD’s 20th Anniversary celebration on Saturday, Sept. 21 at San Francisco’s Concordia-Argonaut club. The event runs from 6-9 p.m. For ticket information, please visit cywd.org.

Other Cheyenne Bell winners are Karen Moore, advocate for youth in the justice system and Kriztina Palone, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services.

In addition to her role with the San Francisco Public Defender, Lee served as CYWD’s first Board Chair, noted the Center’s Executive Director Marlene Sanchez.

“Patricia Lee has been a frontrunner in supporting CYWD’s mission of empowering young women in the juvenile justice system. She is an advocate for gender-responsive services and a true freedom fighter.”

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said Lee transformed the city’s juvenile justice system from one that routinely sent youth to state facilities to one in which it is exceedingly rare to see state commitments.

“Patricia’s strategies, which include intervention by social workers and offering young people meaningful treatment, have become a model for the rest of California,” Adachi said.

Lee said she was honored to receive the award, particularly since Cheyenne Bell was a beloved colleague. Both women worked with CYWD to bring rehabilitative services to girls in the juvenile justice system, a group that had been historically overlooked.

“Cheyenne Bell and I were street soldiers working our cases in the delinquency court. She was a pioneer and one of my heroes. She grew up in the community, brought in services to our kids and helped reform the system,” Lee recalled. “I feel honored and privileged to receive an award bearing her name. This award is to honor all our girl survivors in the system.”

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Husband Acquitted After Burrito Dispute Spurs False Arrest

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San Francisco, CA — A husband falsely arrested after police mistook his embrace of his wife as spousal abuse has been cleared of domestic violence, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

Jurors on Friday afternoon found 30-year-old Carlos Munoz not guilty of one count of misdemeanor domestic violence, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Alexandra Pray. The jury hung on a count of resisting arrest, which was then dismissed by the district attorney. Munoz faced a year in jail if convicted.

The acquittal brings an end to a frustrating and painful legal odyssey for the Munozes, whose June 16 argument over a late night burrito stop escalated into an ordeal that ended with both husband and wife tackled by police.

Returning from a bar, the couple was blocks from their Mission District apartment when Munoz stopped into a local taqueria for a late night snack.  His wife, who wanted to go straight home, became annoyed at Munoz’s pit stop and walked home by herself.

When Munoz returned to the apartment, the couple began arguing loudly over the burrito incident, prompting a neighbor to call 911. When two officers arrived, they listened to the verbal spat through the couple’s front door.

“At this point, Munoz was attempting smooth things over by putting his arms around his wife, kissing her and asking her not to be mad,’” Pray said.

Munoz’s wife, who was not ready to make up, said “stop.”  Hearing that, police decided to intervene and stormed through the couple’s unlocked front door.

During the two-day trial, one of the officers described finding Munoz “embracing his wife from behind.” The officer commanded him to let go of the woman. Munoz complied.

Immediately, Munoz’s wife put her arms around him protectively and began crying, telling police not to take him away. Telling her she was interfering with an investigation, an officer forced her face to the floor, pulled her wrists behind her and put his knee into the small of her back, the officer testified.

As the woman cried out in pain and called her husband’s name, the other officer struggled to get Munoz into handcuffs. Munoz, whose torso was pinned by the officer, attempted to help his wife by moving his legs between her and the officer. He was arrested for domestic violence and resisting arrest. He spent one day in jail before posting bail.

Now separated, Munoz and his wife both told officers the same version of events , insisting their dispute was only verbal.

On the stand, Munoz’s wife recounted that police demanded she take off her bathrobe and show her nude body in order to prove she did not have any injuries. The woman, who suffered back pain after the encounter with police, testified that “the only person that hurt me that night was the officer.”

She testified that she later repeated her account of the night during a phone call with a prosecutor, stressing that nothing physical happened.

“Despite the lack of any evidence or injury, the district attorney pursued the case. One of the biggest questions in the jury room was why this case had even been charged,” Pray said.

Neither Munoz nor his wife had a criminal history of any kind, Pray noted.

Adachi commended the jury for listening to Munoz’s wife when police and prosecutors would not.

“There was absolutely no evidence of any sort of physical altercation, no history of violence in the relationship, and no reason to disbelieve Mrs. Munoz when she insisted she was not a victim of spousal abuse. Fortunately, 12 jurors and Mr. Munoz’s public defender were able to set things right,” Adachi said.

The neighbor who called 911 refused to cooperate in the case, Pray said.

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Tourist Attack Case Thrown Out

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San Francisco, CA — The case against a man accused of beating a tourist unconscious and stealing his Louis Vuitton wallet with $2,000 cash inside was dismissed today, less than 24-hours after jurors deadlocked, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced.

After six hours of deliberation, jurors on Thursday afternoon hung 8-4 in favor of acquitting Tyree Mosley, 29, of robbery and battery causing great bodily injury, said Mosley’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Tal Klement. Mosley, a San Francisco resident, faced eight years in prison if convicted. The District Attorney dismissed the case at a hearing this morning.

Mosley was arrested at gunpoint May 18 after a taxi driver identified him to police as the man he saw hassle a couple for money at Mason and Ellis just before 3 a.m. The taxi driver said Mosley then punched the man in the face three times, leaving him bloodied and unconscious.  The tourists, a 25-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman from Texas, were returning from the Infusion Lounge. The man later told police his attacker had stolen his Louis Vuitton wallet with $2,000 in cash inside.

During the weeklong trial, Klement argued that Mosley was a victim of mistaken identity, citing the lack of physical evidence against him and the conflicting and compromised descriptions of the robber.

The taxi driver initially called 911, telling the dispatcher that the assailant was wearing black and white pants and a gray shirt. The cab driver said he then saw the man run down Mason toward Turk and Taylor streets and decided to follow him. The robber shed some of his clothes on Turk Street. Now shirtless, he walked up to two men and showed them the wallet.  When the men attempted to take the wallet, the bare-chested bandit knocked each of them out with a single punch, according to the taxi driver.

The cabbie then returned to Mason and Ellis streets and flagged down police, telling them he knew who committed the robbery. But when police followed the driver to Turk and Taylor, the shirtless man was no longer there. The taxi driver, frustrated that the man appeared to have escaped, turned up Taylor Street and spotted Mosley wearing a dark shirt and dark pants and walking with his arm around a woman. He told police that Mosley was the robber. Police stopped Mosley at gunpoint and searched him, but found no Louis Vuitton wallet and no $2,000. The robbery victim’s intoxicated and upset girlfriend, who did not see the robbery itself, identified Mosley in a cold show as the attacker.

During the trial, an eyewitness identification expert testified that a break in observation, as experienced by the taxi driver, often leads to misidentification. The cold show identification by the woman also had problems, notably her intoxication and the fact that it was a cross-racial identification. The woman is white and Mosley is black.

The woman also took the stand, testifying that the assailant had dreadlocks. Mosley does not have dreadlocks and did not have dreadlocks at the time of the crime. She admitted she could not identify Mosley as the man who robbed her boyfriend.

The complaining witness also described his assailant as having dreadlocks. Despite that, he pointed out Mosley in the courtroom as the man who beat and robbed him. The tourist’s medical records showed his blood alcohol level was more than .20 at the time of crime, and he was unable to describe the robber’s facial features.

“The case illustrated the well-documented problems of mistaken eyewitness identification,” Klement said. “There was a complete lack of physical evidence against Mr. Mosley. He did not have any money or the wallet stolen from the victim, and although the victim was covered in blood, Mr. Mosley didn’t have a single drop of blood on him.”

Adachi said the case illustrates how an innocent person can be accused of a crime simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Mr. Mosley was frightened and confused when he was surrounded by police and arrested at gunpoint. It’s unfortunate that this case made it to trial, but thanks to the thorough work of Mr. Mosley’s public defender, justice was finally served,” Adachi said.

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Man Acquitted of Champagne Bottle Attack on Dubstep Fan

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San Francisco, CA — A 52-year-old man accused of smashing a champagne bottle over his 30-year-old coworker’s head after the younger man changed the music from classic Michael Jackson to dubstep has been acquitted of all charges, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

Jurors deliberated six hours before finding Gaspar Magisa not guilty Thursday afternoon of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury, according to Magisa’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Jacque Wilson. If convicted, Magisa faced five years in state prison.

Magisa’s arrest stemmed from a bloody incident at a team-building happy hour at advertising firm AKQA on April 27, 2012. Witnesses at the weeklong trial testified that employees, including Magisa, became increasingly annoyed by the younger man’s insistence on switching off his coworkers’ music selections in favor of the bass-heavy electronic dance music.

Coworkers testified that the younger man was extremely drunk and inhaling nitrous oxide, known as Whip-Its, outside the building. When he switched Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Startin‘ Somethin to a dubstep track and proceeded to dance, Magisa, who was pouring himself champagne, decided something had to be done. Still holding the champagne bottle by the neck, Magisa approached the laptop with the intention of returning to the Michael Jackson song. When the younger coworker rushed to commandeer the computer and advanced toward Magisa with an angry look, Magisa reflexively swung the bottle, hitting his coworker in the head. The coworker’s laceration required 17 stitches and two staples to close.

During the trial, Wilson argued that Magisa acted in self-defense against a violent man who had attacked him and others previously. On the stand, the younger man denied being violent. However,  he was contradicted by witnesses who testified he engaged in a spree of violence months earlier at the office Christmas party, including sneaking up behind two men separately as each used a urinal, poking his finger in one man’s eye and smacking the other man’s head against the wall. The complaining witness, when questioned on the stand about the urinal incidents, characterized his conduct as “utterly hilarious.”

After the same Christmas party, witnesses testified, a group of AKQA employees went to the Mission District bar Zeitgeist, where the complaining witness’ belligerence roused the ire of bouncers. When Magisa shepherded him outside, the man picked up the 52-year-old and body slammed him to the sidewalk.

Magisa had been friendly to the young man previous to the Christmas party, including inviting him to his home for Thanksgiving. At that gathering, witnesses testified, the younger man offered to go on a beer run, only to get into a wrestling match with a homeless person on the way to the liquor store.

At the trial, Wilson played the man’s call to 911 following the champagne bottle incident. In the call, the man, who is Russian, calls Magisa a racial epithet historically directed at African Americans. Magisa is Filipino.  In an audiotape of the man’s subsequent conversation with a police investigator, he is heard saying he wants to maximize harm to Magisa and plans to sue him in civil court.

A police officer who responded to the incident also took the stand, testifying that the injured man was belligerent and running in and out of traffic when medics arrived, requiring police to handcuff him so he could receive medical attention. The complaining witness also appeared hostile throughout the trial, repeatedly refusing to take documents from the public defender’s hand.

Wilson said the jury was ultimately convinced that Magisa acted reflexively to defend himself.

“The complaining witness was a bully who had injured people again and again. Mr. Magisa is a kind and gentle man, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to be hurt again,” Wilson said.

Adachi said the verdict allows Magisa, who had no criminal record, to clear his name.

“Standing up for yourself against a person known for violence is not a crime,” Adachi said. “Luckily for Mr. Magisa, his public defender was able to prove to the jury that he was acting in self defense that evening.”

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Huge Backpack Giveaway to Bring Bayview Park to Life

Larry
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San Francisco, CA — More than 3,000 San Francisco children and their families will gather in the recently restored Youngblood Coleman Park in the Bayview this Saturday, Aug. 17 to receive backpacks stuffed with school supplies, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

BMAGIC (Bayview Hunters Point Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in our Communities) Annual Back to School Backpack Giveaway will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the park, which is located at 1398 Hudson St. Children and parents must attend together to receive a free backpack and school supplies. School uniforms, provided by the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, will also be provided. The event serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade and their families. This year’s theme is “Healthy Mind + Healthy Body = School Success.”

BMAGIC, initiated by the Public Defender’s Office in 2004, works to reduce the number of kids who fall through social service gaps by efficiently coordinating opportunities, support and resources. This is the first year the annual backpack giveaway, which started in 2004, has been held in Youngblood-Coleman Park.

“Youngblood-Coleman is the Bayview’s hidden gem,” Adachi said. “Over the past year, BMAGIC has worked alongside the city parks department and local residents to restore this neglected and underused park to its former glory. Saturday’s back to school event is truly a celebration of families returning to this community treasure.”

Youngblood-Coleman Park features sweeping views of the Bay, sports fields, a playground and picnic area and newly restored tennis and basketball courts.

The event, which is in its ninth year, will feature a rock climbing wall, sports and games, and live entertainment. Nearly 50 community-based organizations working in the areas of health, environment, juvenile and social justice, faith-based and after-school programming will be represented, along with elected officials, city agencies, local merchants, funders, grass roots activist, and organizers, including San Francisco School Superintendent Richard Carranza and 49ers alumni Guy McIntyre and Dennis Brown.

“BMAGIC’s Annual Back to School Backpack Giveaway does much more than equip children with the tools for academic success,” said BMAGIC Director Lyslynn Lacoste. “The event also promotes critical services, civic participation and unity in Bayview-Hunters Point.”

Fresh, seasonal, organic fruit will be available, and families will be able to access free health, wellness and financial services at the event. Sponsors include the San Francisco 49ers, Bayview Merchants Association, Bayview Opera House, San Francisco Recreation and Parks, Recology, Rainbow Grocery, Fresh & Easy and SF Wholesale Produce Market.

Mo’ MAGIC to Hand Out 1,200 Backpacks Saturday to Kids in Need

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San Francisco, CA — Backpacks stuffed with school supplies will be handed out to more than  1, 200 kids in need during the Western Addition Health Fair and Backpack Giveaway on Saturday, Aug. 10, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

The annual back-to-school event will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ella Hutch Community Center, 1050 McAllister St. An onsite health fair coordinated by AfroSolo will provide screenings and resources to students in kindergarten through 12th grade and their families.

The celebration is put on by Mo’ MAGIC, a program initiated by the Public Defender’s Office in 2006. Mo’ MAGIC and its sister organization, Bayview MAGIC, each convene more than 100 community organizations and concerned citizens who work to reduce the number of kids who fall through social service gaps by efficiently coordinating opportunities, support and resources.

“Our goal is to ensure every child in San Francisco starts the school year equipped with the tools for success,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. “Those tools go beyond backpacks and pencils. Research has shown that healthy habits and good nutrition are crucial to child development and learning.”

Local artists, clergy, healthcare workers, legislators and community members will volunteer at the event, which offers free screenings and information on asthma, cholesterol, dental health, breast cancer, diabetes, HIV and many more concerns.

Mo’ MAGIC Director Sheryl Davis said her organization provides extensive educational programming to combat the “summer slump” among San Francisco kids. Studies have shown that low-income children are disproportionately affected by summer learning loss.

“The health fair and backpack giveaway is the culmination to a summer of learning,” Davis said. “Our hope is that entire families will become motivated and find the resources to help them make positive health behavior changes.”

Entertainment at the event will include performances by Destiny Muhammad, Harpist from the Hood and Michael Ross, portrait painter.

Besides Mo’MAGIC and AfroSolo, the event is made possible by Supervisor London Breed, The African American Art and Culture Complex, St. Mary’s Medical Center, California Pacific Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente, Comcast, Korean Full Gospel Church, State Bird Provisions and individual donors. Backpacks are donated by Convent & Stuart Hall.

 

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