Collier Gwin, the owner of San Francisco gallery Foster-Gwin Art & Antiquities, has been arrested after a now-viral video showed Gwin apparently spraying a homeless woman with a hose, according to a statement by the San Francisco Police Department.
“On January 18, 2023, at approximately 3:30 p.m. Gwin was arrested on the 700 block of Montgomery Street for the warrant,” the statement reads. “Gwin was transported to the San Francisco County Jail where he was booked for the arrest warrant on the charge of battery.”
Last week, Gwin’s face was shared across social media after San Francisco-based writer Stuart Schuffman posted a video on Instagram of an older man spraying a homeless woman with water from a hose. Schuffman asked his followers if anyone knew the identity of the man in the video and users quickly identified the man as Collier Gwin. Gwin was cleaning the street in front of his antiques shop when he began to spray the woman, who refused to move away from the tree she was sitting under, Gwin said in an interview with local Oakland television station KTVU. Apparently, the woman had been seeking shelter in the area for multiple days.
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In the interview, Gwin apologized for his actions and, according to the police statement published Thursday, at the time neither Gwin nor the homeless requested further action from the police. However, Gwin’s actions have become a flashpoint for a city beset with extreme inequality, a housing shortage, and one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country.
In the days following the assualt, the San Francisco Police Department began investigating the case and “developed probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant for Gwin,” according to the statement.