Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, announced two assault charges against Juan Diaz-Rivas, 36, “in connection to an antisemitic group beating hate crime” in the Marina District in San Francisco on June 14.
Diaz-Rivas, who was scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, is charged with two counts of “assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury,” and one of the charges alleges “that he personally inflicted great bodily injury on one of the victims and that this assault was a hate crime,” Jenkins stated on Tuesday.
The defendant was allegedly part of a group of about six who directed an expletive at Jews and said “free Palestine.” An unidentified victim, who is male, and the victim’s female friend overheard the hate speech, and the friend asked the group to stop and said that she is Jewish.
“Mr. Diaz-Rivas allegedly then got in her face, at which point the victim and his friend started to walk away,” according to the district attorney’s office. (JNS sought comment from the office.)
“The group then came after them, and one of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” it stated. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down.”
A worker at a nearby business, who witnessed the attack and the “antisemitic language,” tried to intervene, the district attorney’s office stated. “While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
The San Francisco Police Department told JNS that at about 2:22 a.m. on June 14, officers who responded to a report found “an adult male suffering from injuries.”
“Paramedics arrived on scene to render aid and transported the victim to a local hospital for his non-life-threatening injuries,” the department said.
“During the preliminary investigation, officers learned that the victim and his friend were approached by an unknown group of subjects,” the department told JNS. “The victim was physically assaulted without provocation. The suspects then fled from the area.”
Officers found two male suspects in the area and arrested Diaz-Rivas, who was booked at San Francisco County Jail. Officers cited the other suspect for simple battery and released him.
“The incident is being investigated as a hate crime based on the information gathered by officers at the scene. The San Francisco Police Department does not tolerate hate of any kind in our community,” it told JNS.
“No one should be targeted because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other shared characteristic,” the department said. “Anyone who commits a hate crime in San Francisco will be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Juan Antonio Diaz-Rivas, age 36, was booked at San Francisco County Jail at 8:03 a.m. on June 14, according to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office website, which lists his bond at $50,000. The defendant’s next court date is listed as June 20 at 9 a.m.
Scott Wiener, a Democratic California state senator who is Jewish, stated that the “violent antisemitic hate crime assault” is “terrifying.”
“Antisemitism is on the rise in the United States, and San Francisco is no exception,” he stated. “In recent weeks, Jews were set on fire in Colorado, an American Jew and Israeli Christian were shot and killed while leaving a Jewish community event in D.C., and a Jewish-owned business in the Mission was horribly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.”
“The daily antisemitic statements and actions we see—demonizing Jews, holding Jews to unique standards and promoting anti-Jewish stereotypes and conspiracy theories—inevitably lead to violence,” Wiener said. “We are seeing that play out in San Francisco and around the country.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco said the incident “was a disgusting act of hate, and it must be met with accountability.”