Hunger strikers make it to mayor’s office but he’s not there

Five hunger strikers in wheelchairs and hundreds of their supporters crossed San Francisco on Tuesday, from the Mission Police Station to City Hall, to reiterate their demand that Mayor Ed Lee fire Police Chief Greg Suhr or resign. Coincidentally, the mayor sent a tweet at the same time the protesters were demanding his attention reading: “Met w merchants on 3rd St in the Bayview to discuss how City can support small business #DreamSmallBiz” After it became clear that the mayor wasn’t coming, they entered the Board of Supervisors chambers during its weekly meeting and chanted, “fire Chief Suhr” as the supervisors looked blandly at them, some shaking their heads. Board President London Breed told the protestors that no Board of Supervisors had done more to address problems in the police department than the current one. [...] in their 13th day without solid food, the hunger strikers are trying to increase pressure on the mayor and police chief, who are facing revelations of racist text messages sent among officers to the fallout from fatal police shootings of four Latino and African-American men since 2014. The strikers — Ilyich Sato, 42; his mother Gutierrez, 66; Sellassie Blackwell, 39; Ike Pinkston, 42; and Edwin Lindo, 29, a candidate for District Nine supervisor — have been camping in front of the Mission Police for almost two weeks. Police officers cleared the streets for the protestors as they made their way to City Hall. Supervisor John Avalos, who has described what he calls a culture of racism in the police department, said he visited the strikers on Friday and they told him they wanted the mayor to meet them on their turf — at the Mission Police Station. Nurses from the city Department of Public Health, sometimes joined by doctors, have been assessing the hunger strikers’ health every day for the last week. UCSF medical students pushed the hunger strikers in their wheelchairs to City Hall Tuesday.