SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A San Francisco homeless man who made many news headlines this year is back in county jail. Garret Allen Doty, 24, was re-booked into jail on August 3 for violating terms of a court’s stay-away order, the District Attorney’s Office told KRON4.
Inmate records show Doty remained behind bars as of Tuesday afternoon.
Doty was previously released from custody in April after a former San Francisco fire commissioner, Don Carmignani, failed to show up as a key witness for Doty’s preliminary hearing.
Doty was accused of beating Carmignani with a metal pipe in the Marina neighborhood on April 5. Carmignani, 53, said he asked the unsheltered man to move away from an entryway to Carmignani’s mother’s home. “Three homeless individuals had set up an encampment. My mother did not feel safe leaving her home. Neither SFPD nor any of the city’s various homeless service providers responded to our 911 calls,” the former fire commissioner wrote.
The April 5 pipe beating was recorded on surveillance video footage obtained by KRON4. Carmignani was hospitalized with a skull fracture.
Additional surveillance videos were later uncovered by the Public Defender’s Office that showed Carmignani allegedly attacked Doty with bear spray before Doty fought back with the pipe, according to defense attorneys.
“Carmignani instigated the altercation with Doty, and may be involved in a series of unsolved bear spray assaults and a robbery against unhoused people in the Cow Hollow and Marina neighborhoods,” the Public Defender’s Office wrote.
A witness told police that she heard Carmignani threaten to kill Doty if he did not leave the area, and Doty reacted in self-defense, according to the Public Defender’s Office.
Days after the pipe and bear spray incident, prosecutors charged Doty with assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with serious bodily injury, and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury. Court proceedings were suspended and Doty was released from jail on April 26.
Carmignani’s attorney previously told KRON4 that the district attorney “should focus on prosecuting the individual who has terrorized the Marina, and put Don in the hospital after brutally beating him with a metal rod.”
Doty’s defense attorney said Carmignani was a no-show for the April 26 preliminary hearing because he did not want to incriminate himself.
Doty is scheduled to appear in court on August 22. The Public Defender’s Office did not respond to KRON4’s request for comment Tuesday on Doty’s most recent arrest.
