S.F. man charged with hate crime, threats in Dolores Park
A 60-year-old San Francisco man who allegedly chased a woman through Dolores Park while shouting racist slurs has been arrested and charged with a felony count of making threats — and a hate crime.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Wednesday announced the arrest of John Killops. He was arrested on Sunday, the same day as the incident, and was being held in San Francisco jail.
The woman who was chased in the park identified as Black and Latina, and the man was threatening to kill her, Jenkins’ office said. Prosecutors filed the hate crime enhancement, which can add years to a sentence, because they have ample evidence that the man “was motivated by animus to Black people,” the statement said.
Killops was arraigned Wednesday in San Francisco County Superior Court, and pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing is set for March 7. If convicted of all charges, Killops could be sentenced to six years in state prison.
The case will be prosecuted by the office’s new Vulnerable Victims Unit, which handles hate crimes and most cases involving physical or financial abuse of victims older than 65.
“Unfortunately there are people in San Francisco who harbor hate and animus towards others because of the color of their skin or who they are,” Jenkins said in a statement. “No one should face threat of violence or discrimination because of who they are, period.”
The incident occurred a week after an attack in Dolores Park in which a woman was hospitalized and traumatized in what police described as an “unprovoked” assault by two women who fled on foot. In that incident, police said, two women on an electric scooter attacked a couple, first punching the man then turning on the woman, smashing her face against a wall and possibly causing her to lose vision in one eye.