Victims Witness Protection in San Francisco, It's failures to Protect...

Newsroom > Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 5, 2007

Contact:

Nayda Young Nayda Young
200 Randolph St. #11 6501 Red Hook Plaza #201
San Francisco, Ca. Saint Thomas, VI 00802
415-333-3369 340-775-9291

Re: “VICTIMS WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM” IN SAN FRANCISCO:
IT’S FAILURES, ITS UNWILLINGNESS AND ITS INABILITY
TO PROTECT THE WITNESSES


On 8/26/01 my daughter’s family home in San Francisco was the center of a shooting
spree; the target of a person trying to kill someone in the family. Bullets riddled the
doors and windows of her apartment. While my daughter and the children were
cowering on the floor, bullets were skimming over their heads. The next day, her
partner was gunned down; six bullets entered the body of the father of her six children.
He survived, but even with physical therapy he is still a mental wreck.

This is when the Victims Witness Protection Program entered the lives of this family
and their real nightmare began. This is where the sleazy hotels entered into their lives;
eight people who were moved from one hotel after another while the police interrogated
and intimidated them as to who was the shooter. After several months they were
finally placed in their final home, another hotel outside of the Bay Area. The six
children, who are all high achievers, were finally able to return to school after lost
months of schooling.

While in this hotel for almost a year their life was in constant turmoil and they were
left alone with no help from the Victims Witness Protection Agency. No one wanted
to rent to them and the Agency was nowhere to be found to guide them. They had three
rooms at that hotel and couldn’t even cook there. Since the Victim Witness Protection
Agency was paying the hotel approximately $100 per day for each room (a total of $300
a day with weekends a little more) this hotel started renovating their hotel rooms, room
by room from this family’s blood, sweat and tears. As each room was being renovated
from money from the Victims Witness Protection Agency the family was moved to the
next three rooms until there were no more. My daughter made countless calls to the
Victims Witness Protection Agency but they seldom responded to their cry for help.

Finally, after all this time of pain, agony and no help from the Victims Witness
Protection Agency the last room was renovated and this family was thrown out
of the hotel. The owner/manager of the hotel drove them to a “self storage” facility
where they were forced to put everything they owned in a storage bin. This left the
family of eight on the street with the clothes on their back.

They borrowed enough money to make it back to San Francisco with no coats.
They made it to 850 Bryant. Someone in the Victim Witness Protection Program
took them to one of the sleazy hotels the State obviously deals with for black victims.
Then the next day dropped this whole family back in the projects in a deplorable
neighborhood where they were unprotected. My daughter was sooooo grateful
that her whole family was together in one place she ignored the risks. They had
to take the wood off the windows with their bare hands and were left in this horrible
apartment with no beds, any kind of covers, stove, refrigerator, or anything for their
comfort. Two adults and six children left shivering, crying and deserted by the Victims
Witness Protection Agency. Never to be seen or heard from again. And why not?

In February 2006, the DA “requested funding to hire seven additional investigators,
which would then be added to the Witness Protection Program.” On May 8, 2006
San Francisco DA Kamala D. Harris “call(ed) for citywide summit to address
witness intimidation. This homicide of another young person (in Witness Protection)
in San Francisco is a horrible tragedy.”

On April 24, 2007 DA Kamala D. Harris’ statement before the Committee on the
Judiciary United States House of Representatives. Her comments re: The House
Resolution 933, the Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007 were "in an
increasing number of cases, witnesses are being intimidated, threatened or
even killed…state-level witness relocation programs are temporary, severely
under-funded and provide few services to witnesses…Witnesses returned to their
old neighborhoods and were killed. It is unacceptable for us to ask heroic
witnesses to come forward, putting their lives and the lives of their families on the
line, if we are not willing to dedicate the resources necessary to keep them safe.
Relocation must be a long-term option for witnesses and their families."

There have been troubling incidents of this sort lately in their neighborhood and
the family has a lot of fear. The Victims Witness Protection Agency says this family
is not in their program any longer and has turned their back on this family. The District
Attorney’s investigator Mr. Larry Wallace says if there is fear in this family they can be moved
to another Housing Project in San Francisco: more danger.
When all is said and done the State has spent $104,520.98 on my family (almost
half the money that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has allotted for the Victims Witness
Protection Agency this year) and the only one that has benefited from this tragedy were the
hotels, not this family; especially the last hotel.

With my recent investigation as to the handling of the case, the San Francisco Police
Department recently harassed my daughter. They attempted to ram her door, and they burst
in with dogs smelling for drugs, though nothing was found. I have begged everyone involved to
move this family out of this city to somewhere else safe so they can start a new life.

We are requesting the Victims Witness Protection Agency to pay the down payment
of $15,000 on a house that has been found, relocate them to this home, restore their
Section 8 and pay for the children to complete their education, (one child was kicked
out of school when he turned 18 so he was unable to graduate.) Also I’d like this agency
to fix my daughter's teeth because she lost her front teeth due to the spousal abuse from
her partner, whose post-traumatic stress syndrome caused home to become violent and
out of control.

According to DA Kamala D. Harris of San Francisco, the Victims Services Division is meant to make the criminal justice system more humane and accessible to victims of violent crimes by providing comprehensive advocacy and support. She said “the following losses may; be covered by our program: medical/dental, mental health counseling, wage/income, financial support, and job retention.”

President George W. Bush says: “ My administration has made the fight against crime a top priority. But when a crime does occur I am dedicated to provide assistance and comfort to victims and to ensure the rights of victims are protected. At the time of their great trauma, crime victims deserve nothing less than our complete support. “ This as part of National Crime Victims Rights Week, in 2002.

However my family did not benefit from the high-minded rhetoric of the legal system in this
country, and so I write to you seeking justice for my family.