A former San Francisco fire commissioner who was beaten by a homeless man is now accused of eight separate attacks in which he allegedly attacked other homeless people with bear mace.
An attorney representing Garret Doty, 24, the man accused of viciously assaulting Don Carmignani, 52, requested that the judge in the case release her client, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday. The request came as police reports released in the discovery process revealed eight incidents in which a man apparently matching Carmignani’s description attacked homeless people, some sleeping or sitting on the ground.
Video of one of the macing incidents, from November 2021, was obtained by the San Francisco Standard. In the footage of a dark street in the Marina district, a man wearing face mask and hat approaches a person sleeping on the street. The man sprays the homeless person with an unknown substance for at least five seconds, before calmly walking away.
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Deputy Public Defender Kleigh Hathaway told the court Wednesday that the man in the video was Carmignani.
“He is terrorizing (homeless people) with a 10-inch can of bear spray, not pepper spray. He sprayed anything and everything, including my client,” Hathaway said in court, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Carmignani suffered a fractured skull when he was attacked with a metal rod outside his mother’s house in the city’s Marina District earlier this month. The violent incident—which came the day after Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death in San Francisco—sparked outrage and was cited by some as an emblematic case of rampant lawlessness in the city.
In the hours before the attack, Carmignani and his mother called 911 to say that three homeless people had set up an encampment outside her home and that they’d made violent threats against her family. Carmignani claimed that when police and homeless service providers failed to respond, he asked the group to leave himself that evening. He alleges one of the group then attacked him.
Garrett Doty, 24, was arrested in connection with the incident and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with serious bodily injury, and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury. The charges could lead to a sentence of up to seven years in state prison.
Carmignani told KPIX Wednesday that his lawyer was contacted by the District Attorney’s Office to say they will now be moving to dismiss the charges against Doty based on the new video evidence.
Carmignani’s lawyer says the district attorney believes the metal rod attack was actually an act of self-defense and that evidence of Carmignani’s alleged assaults on other homeless people had motivated the decision to dismiss the case.
For his part, Carmignani is still healing from his injuries and claims his doctor told him he may have died if just one more blow had been struck on him in a specific place. “I didn’t go out there to fight anyone,” Carmignani told KPIX. “I’m trying to get them down the road, go to the park. It’s three-on-one. I know odds. I’m 52 years old. I have two hip replacements. I’m an old guy, I could have been a dead guy.”
A spokesperson for the Public Defender’s Office told the outlet that Doty’s public defender had “received discovery from the prosecution that includes evidence of prior unprovoked attacks of homeless people alleged to have been committed by Carmignani.” They did not confirm if the charges against Doty would be dropped.
Carmignani says that he may now face charges of his own for discharging pepper spray. “I used the spray as self-defense,” Carmignani said. “I never went after him.” He said that he never actually sprayed the suspect and only mistakenly sprayed himself.
