After Mission Local reported on a Target security guard beating San Francisco resident Shan Bowerman with a baton last week, additional onlooker video reveals what precipitated that beating: The guard, holding a Taser to Bowerman’s chest, forcibly took his money while he protested loudly.
The guard Tases Bowerman in the video, takes the money — a few hundred dollars of a welfare payment by Bowerman’s reckoning — then strikes him in the face with the Taser.
No one was arrested in the incident, but Bowerman was treated in an ambulance. The new footage obtained by Mission Local today corroborates Bowerman’s claims last week that the security guard had intervened in a dispute he had with his girlfriend, forcibly took the money from him, Tased him and then handed the wad of bills to Bowerman’s purported girlfriend.
The video could lead to assault charges against the Target security guard, according to a defense attorney, and Bowerman could also be accused of assault for his later reaction.
In the new video, the guard has Bowerman, 56, pinned against a wall at a bus stop at Fourth and Mission streets. He is holding a yellow stun gun to Bowerman’s chest and demanding he surrender the money.
“Look, it’s mine!” Bowerman says in the video, holding out a wad of cash. The guard orders Bowerman to “give everything back to her” — apparently referring to Bowerman’s girlfriend, who is nearby.
“I didn’t take nothing from her,” Bowerman responds in the new footage, with the stun gun still pressed to his chest. The guard then attempts to take the cash out of Bowerman’s hands. When Bowerman refuses to let it go, the guard shocks him with the Taser and snatches the money.
Bowerman yells out, and holds his hand to his chest, saying, “What the fuck you doing, that’s my money!” The guard responds by hitting Bowerman in the face with the stun gun, then hands the cash in question to a woman.
Bowerman told Mission Local last week that he and his girlfriend had been arguing over the money before the guard got involved. He said the money was his, and his girlfriend was attempting to take it.
“Don’t give her that,” Bowerman can be heard saying in the new video. “She stole my money!”
On Nov. 1, this reporter witnessed Bowerman demand the guard return his money and then chase and punch the guard. The guard then struck Bowerman at least 10 times with a baton, a sequence filmed by Mission Local.
Eyewitnesses said that Bowerman and a woman he said was his girlfriend had been fighting near Target, and ended up across the street. One witness said the woman was “whooping” Bowerman with a stick, and another said he appeared to be choking her.
The prior argument between Bowerman and his girlfriend was not caught in either video, nor was Bowerman following, then punching the guard after the guard forcibly took the money and walked away.
After Mission Local described the video footage, San Francisco criminal defense attorney Randy Knox said that the guard could be accused of robbery or grand theft — but that both the guard and Bowerman should have called the police before the situation escalated.
“If [the guard] thinks that homeboy is beating up his girlfriend, he would be … justified in preventing the girl from being hurt” or restraining Bowerman, Knox said. “Holding him to inflict more punishment on him, just gratuitously, no.”
Similarly, once the guard had given the money to Bowerman’s girlfriend and walked away, Bowerman was not legally justified in chasing down the guard to punch him, Knox said.
“That’s a fresh battery, where the security guard is entitled to defend himself,” Knox said. The subsequent baton beating, however — in which the guard chased down Bowerman, pinned him against a parked car, and delivered a series of blows — may have gone too far, from a legal standpoint. “The guard can only use the force necessary to stop the assault … and once his adversary is disabled, he cannot use force anymore.”
In the video of the baton beating, Bowerman scampers away from the guard and his baton, and is seen attempting to shield himself from the blows.
When the guard was asked about the incident on Nov. 1, he said, “You have to talk to Target about that, ma’am.” He then went into a “members only” office within Target, refusing to answer questions. His partner, who is seen in both videos, denied being at the scene.
Target did not respond to requests for comment.
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