San Francisco's city attorney is investigating the San Rafael Police Department after one of its officers dropped off an unhoused man in San Francisco without helping him get services.
The drop-off, which was captured on camera, happened in June on 14th Avenue near Lake Street in the Richmond District.
First responders then took the man to a hospital for medical attention.
The person who shot the video does not want to be identified. But they said the man lingered in the neighborhood, and ultimately tried to start a fire.
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San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu told NBC Bay Area Wednesday that his office is now investigating the case.
“It's disturbing that another jurisdiction would drop someone, who is experiencing homelessness or mental health challenges in the middle of a residential neighborhood with no services or resources,” he said.
Some residents NBC Bay Area talked to on Wednesday said they've heard of unhoused people being shuttled from one area to the next, sometimes from state to state. But they said that they never actually seen it on video.
“It feels like you can care about about them enough to not throw them in prison, but you can't care about them enough to get them some sort of help, and you're just going to make it somebody else's problem," said San Francisco resident Julia Templeman.
“It's egregious. It's just not fair to him, I mean, he doesn't know his way around here,” said San Francisco resident Judy Grossman.
NBC Bay Area reached out to the mayor of San Rafael and members of the Marin County Board of Supervisors to ask about services available for the unhoused. But they did not respond.
San Rafael police apologized for the incident, saying, in part, "The San Rafael police department does not have a policy to take people to other jurisdictions and just leave them without any notification or approval. We are taking this incident seriously."
Police added they are not allowed to comment further due to "an ongoing personnel investigation."
The San Rafael Police Department also apologized to the residents of the neighborhood and the San Francisco police officers and firefighters, who were called in to help the man.
"From my perspective, we're going to need a little bit more than just an apology,” Chiu said. “We want to know that there's going to be a real policy put into place to ensure that this doesn't happen again. And I will also emphasize, this did not happen at zero cost to our city."
Chiu said that San Francisco has previously sued the state of Nevada for similar practices years ago. That suit was ultimately settled for $400,000.
