Muni Protesters Decry Ills, Halt Service

The protest was long planned and include several reasons

Protesters marched near Muni in San Francisco protesting a variety of perceived ills, causing a standstill for the public transit service Monday morning and prompting bus bridges to help out stranded commuters.

The protest was long planned. The reasons include: An attack on organized labor, policies of alleged racial discrimination by city agencies including police and Muni, and the one-year anniversary of the death of Kenneth Harding, according to the San Francisco Examiner.

Sfgate.com reported that by 9 a.m., the protesters  numbered only 30, and they had blocked two lines from entering the city's downtown tunnel for just 45 minutes.

Much of the brouhaha was to remember Harding who was killed July 16, 201.

At first, it was believed that a San Francisco police officer shot him, after officers thought that the 19-year-old had not paid his Muni fare. A coroner's  report, however, showed that the bullet came from a weapon that Harding had on him, although that fact has been disputed by community members, according to the Examiner.

Harding was a convicted pimp, and was a person of interest in the shooting death of a pregnant woman in Seattle, the paper reported.

Event organizers targeted the intersection of Third Street and Palou Avenue in the Bayview district as the gathering point for the protest. Muni tweeted Monday morning about its service changes, including that the J Line was switching back inbound to outbound at Church and Market streets.

The T-Third Street light-rail line and the 54-Felton, 44-O’Shaughnessy, 24-Divisadero and 23-Monterey bus lines all pass through the intersection.

At about 7:30 a.m., protesters cleared out of the Church and Duboce stop, allowing trains there to run. The crowd began heading to Market Street. They have said they will try to shut down Muni routes all day.

Collectively, those lines carry nearly 70,000 passengers each day.
 

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