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20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 9-15, 2017
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News Briefs
From page 15
SFPD kicks off holiday toy drive
The San Francisco Police Department, in collaboration with Walgreens, kicked off its holiday toy drive that will benefit the city’s children in need. Until December 19, SFPD will be accepting donations of new, unwrapped toys at more than 60 San Francisco Walgreens locations. The goal is to exceed last year’s toy drive,
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Man found dead
From page 3
Paul Novales, the building manager, who described Harris as “absolutely nice” and “the kind of tenant that everyone wishes they had,” said that he got a call at about 2 p.m. Thursday because Harris hadn’t been seen in a couple of days. Novales said that he knocked on Harris’ door, but there was no response, so he unlocked it. When he opened the door, there were “big drops” of blood “on the floor and smears of blood on the wall and the door going into the bathroom,” he said. He immediately walked away from the door to the apartment and called 911. Novales said that there was an open door inside the one-room apartment that blocked the view of the rest of the unit, and he didn’t see Harris’ body. He said that a woman who lives next to Harris’ apartment heard “loud voices” coming from there at about 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, November 1, but she couldn’t tell what was being said. Police, who have called Harris’ death a homicide, said that he’d suffered “stab wounds” and that a knife was used as the weapon. (The medical examiner’s office confirmed Harris’ identity, but the agency hasn’t released the cause or manner of Harris’ death.) Officer Giselle Linnane, a police spokeswoman, declined to share any more details about the case, and she wouldn’t say whether Alkoraishie Ali, Harris’ boyfriend, is a suspect. Novales said that he didn’t know Ali very well. He is also known as Ali
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LGBT candidates
From page 12
place candidate in a runoff. Lesbian newcomer Liliana Bakhtiari almost won a council seat from an incumbent. At midnight, she was leading with 54 percent of the vote, but by morning, she had garnered only 49 percent and the incumbent had enough votes to avoid a runoff. Two gay male candidates, Bill Powell and Kirk Rich, fell short in their bids for Atlanta City Council seats. And Josh McNair came in third in his bid for a seat on the Fulton County Commission.
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Cannabis
From page 12
require new dispensaries and stores selling recreational cannabis to be at least 1,000 feet away from a school. “If that passes, we have not succeeded,” he said, as such a proposal would make it very difficult for anyone to find a qualifying location. That policy “has no basis in reality,” he said, noting that stores selling alcohol or tobacco do not have to meet such criteria. Sheehy believes that people testifying that the sale of cannabis puts children in danger “is a reminder of the stigma” facing people who sell or use marijuana. About a dozen people testified in favor of this at the November 6 hearing and “it amounts to repeating the slogans” introduced by
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that she’s leaving the organization at the end of the year. Susana Caceres, who’s led El/La for four years, said in a recent news release, “It has been my absolute privilege to do this work and I’m happy to leave the organization in a more grounded and fruitful place.” The San Francisco nonprofit, which provides HIV testing, leadership development, and other services for transgender Latinas, recently marked its 11th anniversary. “Personally, this position has brought me deep life lessons and humbleness as I’ve seen the
translatina community continue to be resilient and continue to support each other in any way they can,” stated Caceres, who’s been with El/ La for six years. “It has been a lesson of love. Fierce love that says you are home, we are family, you can be yourself here.” She added, “My plan is to stay connected to the organization and to support its growth.” Caceres declined to be interviewed, saying in an email that she’s “super swamped.” Marcia Ochoa, El/La’s advisory board co-chair and co-founder,
didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. The group’s budget and other financial information wasn’t immediately available. A job description for the interim executive director, which didn’t specify a salary, said the successful candidate would start December 1.t
Holly Richards worked with Harris at Automotive Mastermind, where Harris was an engineering manager. Harris was “probably the best person you’ve ever met,” said Richards, who called him “very caring” and “very supportive.” Richards said that when she last saw Harris on Tuesday, October 31, “he was in good spirits.” When Harris didn’t show up for work after that, “We just thought it was really unlike him,” she said. Automotive Mastermind staff got in touch with Novales, the apartment manager. Richards said she never met Ali. Harris talked about him “from time to time,” and “I know they were causal partners,” she said. “They weren’t serious.” She didn’t know if the two had had any trouble with each other, and she didn’t know if she should discuss any details.
“I think they just had normal relationship quarrels here and there, but I don’t think Keith was ever abused,” she said. Ali “was troubled in his own life, but it didn’t have to do with Keith,” said Richards, adding that she didn’t know details of Ali’s troubles. Isaiah Carter, the manager at Body, said Ali worked at the Castro district clothing shop for “almost a month.” The last time he’d worked was Tuesday night, Halloween. He said that he’d only had “superficial conversations” with Ali, but his impressions were good. “He was a great guy,” said Carter, and “customers loved him, employers liked him. He was very business-orientated.” Ali, who has also worked as a go-go dancer and other jobs, left the shop just after it closed at about 8 p.m. He’d said that he was going to see a movie with Harris at the AMC Dine-In Kabuki 8 Theater, said Carter, who’d only met Harris briefly. Ali had “always talked very highly” of Harris, said Carter. The next day, November 1, Ali didn’t show up to work, said Carter. Since then, calls to Ali’s phone have gone straight to voicemail, and he hasn’t responded to text messages, said Carter. Police have been at the shop to ask about Ali, Carter said, but they haven’t shared any information with him. Ammar Aliraqi, Ali’s brother, who lives in Baghdad, said in an exchange of Facebook messages with the B.A.R. on Tuesday, November 7 that he didn’t know where Ali was, and the family hadn’t been in contact with him since three weeks ago, when
Ali said that he wanted to kill himself because he missed his mother. “We’re worried about him,” said Aliraqi, who also lists his name on Facebook as Al-muttalabi. Ali had performed as a go-go dancer the last weekend in October at the gay Radium club in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The club’s entertainment director, who goes by the name Jennifer St. James, said that Ali had seemed “if not depressed, a little out of sorts.” St. James said he thought Ali might have been tired from his flight from San Francisco, but he added that over the weekend, Ali had been talking to his sister in Arabic. “He kept talking about wanting to go home, but he couldn’t go home. ... He wanted to see his mom,” said St. James. Ali told St. James that “he was not feeling well” and “that when he got back home he was going to go to the doctor. ... He said something about medication,” but he didn’t say what kind. St. James didn’t press Ali for details. In a phone interview last week, Harris’ brother Steven Harris, 41, of Vicksburg, Mississippi, said Keith Harris “was a very loving person” whose “smile could light up a room.” “I’m glad he was my brother,” said Harris. Asked about Ali, Harris said, “I don’t give a shit about that guy you’re talking about,” and he said that he’d never met him. “He better hope I never do,” said Harris. Harris said that he wasn’t aware that his brother had had any problems, and he was “not speculating on anything,” but asked why talking
about Ali made him angry, Harris was incredulous. “Why do I feel angry about someone killing my brother? ... I’m angry at whoever did it,” he said. Longtime San Francisco party promoter Gus Bean, who was friends with Ali and Keith Harris, said that Ali, who’s in his early 20s, has frequently worked for him as a go-go dancer. “They seemed like a perfectly happy couple. ... Keith’s an absolute sweetheart, the sweetest guy ever,” and “Ali seemed like a really sweet guy,” said Bean. He said that he didn’t know of Ali having any trouble involving drugs or crime. “When he came to work at the parties, he seemed completely sober and always did a really great job and was definitely professional,” he said. Ali, who’s acted in at least one porn movie under the name Ali Liam, has a profile on the escort site Rent.Men on which he says that he’d “just moved” to the United States after leaving “his whole family to have his freedom.” “[I’m] here to make you feel better than ever,” said Ali to potential clients, referring to himself as a model, dancer, and trainer. There didn’t appear to be any signs of forced entry on Harris’ apartment door, which was sealed with a sticker from the medical examiner’s office when a reporter stopped by Friday afternoon, November 3. A man who lives down the hall from Harris’ apartment said he’d never heard trouble coming from Harris’ unit and his death was “a complete surprise to all of us.” t
In Boston, newcomer Mike Kelley, an aide to former Mayor Tom Menino, came within 500 votes of winning a council seat against the son of another former Boston mayor, Ray Flynn. The seat represents the district that includes heavily gay South End. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, longtime incumbent Denise Simmons, the first openly lesbian African-American mayor in the U.S., appears to have easily won re-election to her ninth term on the council. In Cincinnati, openly gay Ryan Messer was the top vote-getter out of 13 candidates vying for four seats
on the city’s board of education. Lesbian candidate Renee Hevia appears to have come in fifth place, just 100 votes behind the fourth place winner. (The vote is so close, there may be a recount after provisional ballots are counted.) In New Orleans, gay candidate Seth Bloom has won the right to a runoff November 18 against another challenger for a vacant seat. Bloom was the top vote-getter, with 40 percent of the vote. His runoff challenger garnered 27 percent, and four other candidates split the remaining 33 percent. In Lansing, Michigan, openly gay
school board member Pete Spadafore won an at-large seat on the City Council, while newcomer Jim McClurken lost a bid for a district council seat. And in Palm Springs, voters gave their two vacant City Council seats to a transgender woman and a bisexual woman. Lisa Middleton’s victory makes her the first transgender person to win a non-judicial elective office in California. Middleton and Christy Holstege, who is married to a man and identifies as bisexual, according to the Victory Fund, were the top two vote-getters in a field of six candidates. [See story, page 1.]
A gay candidate for City Council in Cape Coral, Florida, found a flier on his front door in August, threatening him with a “nice visit” from the Ku Klux Klan. James Schneider, 54, said, “I’m a gay, Jewish, German man” and that he considers the flier a hate crime. The flier said, “We know where you live faggot ... quit now ...” He told the local News-Press that photos of him with gay slurs have also been posted on Facebook in the area. Meanwhile, another local paper, the Cape Coral Daily Breeze, endorsed Schneider’s opponent. The opponent won with 68 percent of the vote. t
the Pacific Justice Institute, which has held numerous news conferences at City Hall to protest the establishment of medical cannabis dispensaries in the Sunset. PJI has been labeled an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, though its leaders dispute that. District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who chaired the land use committee hearing, urged the supervisors to “get this done right rather than get it done fast.” Peskin said he was in favor of developing a comprehensive citywide strategy, rather than allowing neighborhoods to seek exemptions, although he has asked for a ban in Chinatown. District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim said that proposed restrictions on new dispensaries might not
be prejudicial but rather about the diversity of businesses in each neighborhood. For example, said Kim, there are already 72 liquor stores in the Tenderloin, which is part of her district. “I’d rather have a cannabis dispensary,” said Kim, because such businesses typically do outreach, have security, and bring jobs to the neighborhood. Wiener, a longtime cannabis advocate, posted his position on the controversy on his Facebook page, according to his Sacramento office. “If you support people having access to cannabis products in San Francisco, you should be deeply concerned about” some of the restrictions under consideration by the Board of Supervisors, he said. “San Francisco has long been a
world leader on cannabis,” Wiener stated. “We created the medical cannabis movement during the height of the HIV epidemic. Northern California is the cannabis cultivation capital of the world. Some truly amazing and innovative businesses are springing up right in our city, creating jobs and tax revenue and ensuring San Francisco’s place as a center of innovation and center of cannabis.” Wiener said the city has a “huge opportunity” to participate in the industry “in a major way,” including jobs, revenue, tourism, and creativity. “I am well aware of the pressures local elected officials face when a vocal minority demands that you not allow X, Y, or Z (be it housing, cannabis, or a new bus
line) in their neighborhood,” he added. “It’s hard to say no. Yet, in this situation, I am confident that a large majority of San Franciscans would not support such severe restrictions on cannabis establishments. After all, San Francisco voted 73 percent in favor of cannabis legalization”. Some of the suggested restrictions, such as a 600 foot radius around schools, “are simply over the top,” Wiener stated. The Board of Supervisors will continue its deliberations on cannabis next week at the Transportation and Land Use Committee meeting Monday, November 13 at 1:30 p.m. and at the full board meeting Tuesday, November 14 at 2. For details, check the agenda at www.sfbos.org. t
in which approximately 6,000 items were donated at the stores for distribution to local kids. “Something as simple as a toy can stir a child’s imagination and bring joy to youth in need,” SFPD Chief William Scott said in a news release. Donations can be dropped off at any San Francisco Walgreens that features a brightly colored and marked toy drive collection bin.
El/La director announces departure
The executive director of El/La Para TransLatinas has announced Liam and Othman Al Muttalaby. He hasn’t responded to Facebook, email, phone, or text messages from the Bay Area Reporter. However, Vivien Habeeb, a friend of Ali’s, told the Bay Area Reporter in a Facebook exchange that she heard from Ali Tuesday, November 7. “He called me from a hospital, and I was told by his social worker that police were questioning him right after he was out of some surgery,” said Habeeb, who lives in Davis, California. She declined to share more information, indicating that she was waiting for permission from police. Police spokespeople didn’t immediately confirm Habeeb’s statement.
Last seen
Seth Hemmelgarn contributed reporting. For more News Briefs, see ebar. com.