San Francisco prosecutors made an abrupt about-face on Wednesday and said they will now move ahead with charging a vagrant who beat a former fire commissioner with a crowbar — after The Post revealed they were quietly trying to drop the case.
The District Attorney’s new spin comes one day after prosecutors reportedly decided transient Garrett Doty was acting in self-defense when he cracked the skull of former commissioner Don Carmignani on April 5 and informed him they would be dropping the charges.
After Carmignani spoke out about the decision and released a new video showing the attack, they quickly backtracked.
“We have not dismissed the charges in this case,” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement.
“Holding violent offenders accountable is a top priority for our office to protect public safety,” Jenkins added. “Following the arrest of Garrett Allen Doty, in connection to an assault on Don Carmignani on April 5, 2023, we filed multiple felony charges against Doty and sought to detain him for violent felonies.”
A day previously Carmignani said he had been informed the charges were to be dropped because prosecutors said he instigated the assault by deploying pepper spray on the homeless man, whom he was trying to move on from outside his mother’s home.
Prosecutors said they prepared a preliminary hearing in the case to give Carmignani an opportunity to give a statement on Wednesday — before pushing it off to Thursday.
Former San Francisco fire commissioner Don Carmignani, 52, was beaten with a crowbar by a transient on April 5. City prosecutors tried to quietly drop the charges against the suspect, Garrett Doty, until The Post revealed the ruse. CBS News“At our request, the court continued this case until tomorrow for a hearing,” the DA’s statement said. “We have subpoenaed [Carmignani] to appear tomorrow through his counsel. The defendant [Doty] remains in custody.”
Jenkins maintained Carmignani “has not provided an interview to the San Francisco Police Department on this case despite multiple requests,” although Carmignani’s attorneys claimed the opposite was true and authorities had not contacted him since the attack to hear his side of things.
“We are hopeful he is available to testify in open court, as he has now given an on-camera media interview about the attack from his recollection,” Jenkins said in the statement.
Footage shows Doty rearing back to strike Carmignani with a metal rod. Colla & Ray LLPCarmignani, 53, has admitted he approached Doty after the city neglected his mother’s calls to 911 asking for help — she had witnessed three people consuming drugs and harassing neighbors in her entryway.
Video of the incident released by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office reportedly shows Carmignani walk up to Doty drawing something from his pocket.
Doty, who was out of the camera frame, quickly backs away and covers his face with the hood of his jacket as the men appear to argue.
Joe Alioto-Veronese, a prominent attorney and friend, said when Carmignani asked them to move, he was bludgeoned in the back of the head by Doty, which injured the former smoke-eater’s skull and brain.
A second video shows Doty swinging the metal rod, backing a heavily bleeding Carmignani against the wall of a gas station store, hitting Carmignani and chasing after him down the street. Doty, 24, was later arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
The former fire commissioner suffered skull and brain injuries in the attack. Colla & Ray LLP“[Doty] was actually seen swinging the pipe and walking around the neighborhood after the attack,” Alioto-Veronese said.
The SF Public Defender’s Office, however, is urging the district attorney to drop the charges against Doty, claiming he acted in self defense. The office also claimed, citing new evidence turned over by the DA, that Carmignani may be linked to a string of up to eight random bear spray attacks on people living on the streets of San Francisco.
The office said the April 5 incident between Carmignani and Doty is similar to the M.O. used by the person responsible in the serial attacks and that the former commissioner fits the physical description of the suspect.
Investigators have not determined the identity of the suspect in the other attacks.
District Attorney Jenkins called the possible connection between Carmignani and the other attacks mere “allegations.”
“I have viewed a video and right now, it’s just an allegation of who it is. There is more investigation that needs to be done,” Jenkins told ABC7 News.
“These are all allegations right now for any of these alleged circumstances.”
