Shooting at 7th and Market (San Francisco), June 25, 2011

UPDATE: I received a conciliatory email today from Brooke Oliver, thanking me for removing the objectionable material, urging me to be more careful in the future and inviting me to participate in future Pride celebrations. She also withdrew the demand for $10,000 in damages.

The following letter comes from the good folks at SF Pride. They say I defamed them by suggesting the shooting occurred at SF Pride. Ms. Oliver makes her case that it did not. I have no information other than what you see in the video, well informed by knowledge of prior incidents and what I observed this past weekend. Any prior indication that it was connected with SF Pride was pure opinion based on the direction of the people coming and going in the area, the way these people were dressed and the close proximity of the incident to the parade route and the festival. I am very sorry if Ms. Oliver and SF Pride misinterpreted the captions and I recognize others could have misinterpreted the captions as well. With this in mind, the public deserves to see what's on the video and happening in their city close to events like the Pride festival. And so I have chosen to keep it up sans captions.

------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Wilton:

I am General Counsel for the San Francisco Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration Committee, Inc. ("SF Pride"), the producer of San Francisco Pride and the owner of the trademark "SF Pride, among other valuable marks.

The YouTube video that you filmed and display at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfz0zxDdNc falsely states that there was a "shooting at Pride 2011". The police and the media have all confirmed and made affirmative public statements that the shooting that happened on Saturday evening, June 25th WAS NOT AT SF PRIDE and was not connected the Pride Festival.

For example, see: http://www.sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=3763&recordid=52 which quite clearly leaves out any reference to SF Pride or the Pride festival. And http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8214747 which notes that the shooting was "blocks from the Pride festivities."

Your YouTube posting falsely claims in the title and in the introductory splash page at 0:01-0:06. In fact, the shooting was NOT on the SF Pride festival grounds and was not related to SF Pride, or the Pride Festival, or any LGBT issue or concern.

You did not, for example, title your video "shooting in front of Apple iPad advertisement." Nothing in the video has any connection with SF Pride or the Pride festivities. You simply chose to sensationalize your posting by wrongly associating a violent tragedy with the safe and peaceful, SF Pride. Your advertising harms SF Pride by that false association. It harms SF Pride's ability to attract attendees and sponsors for future events by creating the false impression that the event and festival were the site of a violent shooting.

Your video constitutes false advertising from an attorney, trade libel, and constitutes tortious interference with SF Pride's prospective economic advantage by associated its safe event with this tragic and entirely unrelated incident.

According to YouTube, over 3,200 have viewed this outrageous misrepresentation already. Specifically:

San Francisco / Civic Center Shooting at Pride 2011 - Sat 6-25-2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfz0zxDdNc

The end of the video at about 2:27 in states:

Filmed by David Wilton
Law Offices of David Wilton
http://www.davidwilton.com/
(415) 669-4059

SF Pride demands that you at once do the following or we will take all other necessary and appropriate legal action:

1. Take down the above referenced video.

2. Replace it with an affirmative public apology to SF Pride for wrongly associating it with violence, and clarifying that the shooting on Market Street had nothing to do with the SF Pride festival, and was blocks away from it;

3. Pay SF Pride $10,000 in damages and costs. Any delay will certainly see this amount increase.

Very Sincerely,
Brooke Oliver
Outside General Counsel, San Francisco Pride

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• YouTube editor

[oldbro415]

You said it yourself "within steps."

Within steps is not at SF Pride 2011. You should pay attention to yourself counselor.

[DavidWiltonNet]

@oldbro415 Your opinion is noted.

[TheSmokingNug]

also, the shooting was on market st. between 7th and 8th and on the sfpride website it has a MAP listed that the sfpride parade goes right past the spot of the shooting and the area was closed off to motor traffic for the event which means it technically was considered part of the pride festival.

YET another map on the SFpride website titled "SFPride_2011_Map_052711.pdf" shows the booth area and the shooting took place 1 block away and not several blocks away as brooke trolliver infers.

[DavidWiltonNet]

@TheSmokingNug That's interesting about the map you reference. I took a look at it. It strongly supports the argument that SF Pride extends to Market Street. When you consider routes of ingress and egress, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that areas extending a block or more from the event boundaries come under the influence of the festival.

[oldbro415]

You titled the video "Shooting at SF Pride 2011" and you don't think they have the right to be upset?

I think you're being a big baby by posting the letter.

[DavidWiltonNet]

@oldbro415 Your point would be valid if the shooting had occurred in the financial district or in Soma. It occurred within steps of the event. The aftermath included young people running into the event grounds past where I and about 10 people I was with were standing.

[drugdout]

ok 1st off

7th n market is whr the pride parade happens...

innocent people who were attending pride were shot!!

yes i consider this shooting related to pride

thts two years in a row tht thr were shootings at pride.. stop trying to deny tht pride attracts a lot of violent people.. any big event does

[123koan1]

ewww did you see his legg gross

[anne91276]

I hope that guy who was shot and was being treated for his wound has recovered fully. I mean, why do thugs want to carry guns in order to help provoke endless violence? This is just sick.

[porn1978]

monkeys

[aztecrobowalk]

If some of you are so angry that a shooting happened next your event that you feel the need to try and sue the person who merely documented the aftermath of that shooting (and suppress information about it, like this video), than maybe you should have your pride event in some podunk town somewhere. You probably won't have to worry about violence and negative PR in that case.

[aztecrobowalk]

Anyone complaining about this video because it may reflect poorly on pride is an over-sensitive, over reactive moron. You live in the same city as the people who shoot each other/are getting shot (aside from the tourists from England and Florida who were hit in this shooting), and it happened next to your event. Why don't you take responsibility for that fact instead of attempting to suppress it just because it might make you look kind of bad by some vague association. Talk about selfish.

[aztecrobowalk]

@gayforlife2020 How is this video sensational? A shooting happened downtown. This is a video of the aftermath. What is sensational about it, and why is "patching" and "fair SF videos" needed just because someone posted a video of the bad side of SF? This shooting wasn't connected with Pride (though it occurred right next to it)...so why do you guys keep bringing pride up then, and acting like the uploader owes you something? He removed the mention of pride from the title anyways.

[gayforlife2020]

Well, this created a stir. The footage was really interesting to those of us who have lived in that area, and can never decide whether we want to go back or not. It was indeed hard to make a connection to SF Pride. They are a political bunch, but if it were my organization, I would have upbraided you, too. A good way to really patch this up is to make some interesting videos about SF. There is a paucity of fair video that is not sensational in nature, when it concerns Civic Center/Tenderloin.

[abbychaya]

take it down you stubborn little twerp

[7466309change]

How about apeared?

[OnlineCommercialsNet]

This guy is a lawyer? Thats makes the "It's within steps...." very funny.