Shawn Wen

I learned about Bob Lee's murder in the same way that most people did, just seeing coverage from the media and on social media.

This is Kevin Benedicto, a San Francisco police commissioner.

What you saw right away was people jumping to conclusions, blaming the Ed House, blaming open-air drug markets.

In San Francisco, a police commissioner is not the city's top cop, the way it is in New York or in Batman.

Instead, the commission is like a civilian advisory board that's meant to oversee police misconduct.

It's basically a volunteer gig.

Bob Lee happened to die the night before a routine police commission meeting, which would be broadcast to the public.

So before the meeting starts, Benedicto wants to talk to the city police chief, a guy named Bill Scott.

One reason why I wanted to speak to the chief of police before the commission meeting was to ask if there was any evidence that this was linked to opener drug markets, if there was any evidence that this was connected to any unhoused individuals or anyone in a mental health crisis.

And at that point, the answer was no, there was nothing that connected to those things.

And all the evidence pointed to that not being the case.

What really, I think, most frustrated and really disgusted me was what seemed to me an attempt to weaponize this tragedy to advance an existing political agenda and to advance political narratives about the state of San Francisco when we were less than 24 hours, when the investigation was still in its early stages, and there wasn't really any evidence to suggest any of those things.

And all the sort of statistical data suggested really quite the opposite.

At the commission meeting that night, Benedicto decides to make a statement about Bob Lee.

I do feel compelled to comment on what we're seeing.

I do feel like some people out there on the media and social media that are exploiting this horrific incident for political gain.

Like most government commission meetings, this one was sparsely attended.

So he thinks he's speaking to a small group of people.

So much of the coverage in this short amount of time has been a significant amount of misrepresenting facts, of fear-mongering, and of trying to exploit this tragedy.

The thrust of my statement was really wait and see.