Cothran

Realizing she didn't have the votes to pass the legislation, Bierman asked for and was granted a continuance.

As the bill's supporters left the board chambers and began to descend the stairs toward the first floor of City Hall under the world famous rotunda, they were forced to pass through a gauntlet of more than 200 screaming RBA members waving placards and signs and scaring the daylights out of people.

"I was taking elbows in the ribs and I was being poked with picket signs all the way down the stairs," says veteran affordable-housing activist Calvin Welch.

"The animosity was super-high," says Ben Hanes, the 25-year-old graphic designer who would ultimately find himself being tackled and choked by O'Donoghue and another RBA member, Mack Burton.

"I mean it was crazy," Hanes continues. "These guys were just so angry and shouting and screaming. It was intense. These people were just so super-hyped-up with anger. I felt a very violent energy coming from them. I'm glad [the attack] happened at City Hall. If it happened anywhere out of the public eye I could have been seriously injured."

After the live-work opponents got to the bottom of the stairs, Hanes turned around and went back up to where O'Donoghue was being interviewed by a television reporter. Hanes got behind O'Donoghue and began chanting "No More Lofts" in an effort to get on television.

Sue Hestor, the attorney for the Coalition for Jobs, Arts & Housing, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs, was amazed at Hanes' gumption.

"You don't go up to Joe O'Donoghue," Hestor says, recalling the event. "He's a thug. Ben is one of our naive people. He wanted to convert Joe's guys, to get them into a dialogue. Duh!"

From there, accounts differ, as they are wont to do. Plainly speaking, I tend to believe Ben Hanes and his friends more than I do O'Donoghue. (Mack Burton did not respond to interview requests placed with the RBA.)

According to police reports, witness statements, and interviews, Burton allegedly began shoving Hanes as the two men shouted at each other, arguing the merits of their respective positions. As the situation escalated, Hanes tried to go all peace and love on Burton, offering him a hug.

According to Hanes' written statement to police, "[Burton] started to yell at me and was shouting in my face. I tried to explain to him that I am opposed to live-work, but that I am all for creating jobs in the city. In the name of brotherly love I tried to hug him. He pushed me back and exclaimed, 'I am not your brother.' [Burton] continued to push me back but I kept my footing. (I was on the steps, and would fall backwards if I lost my footing.)"

Eventually, Hanes did lose his footing and was about to tumble down the stairs when, according to eyewitnesses and O'Donoghue himself, Burton and O'Donoghue set on Hanes and tackled him to the ground. O'Donoghue grabbed Hanes around the neck and clapped his hand over Hanes' mouth. Eyewitness statements say that a swarm of RBA members piled onto the fight.

In his police statement, Hanes said, "I could not speak for several minutes [due to the injury to his throat]." Hanes added that he was not seriously or permanently injured.

The attack was broken up quickly by Hanes' fellow anti-live-work activists and sheriff's deputies. Burton was hustled from the building by RBA members but O'Donoghue was detained by deputies. Hanes and other eyewitnesses asked that he be arrested for assault and battery. The deputies refused, saying they hadn't seen anything. According to several people who witnessed the attack, the deputies even refused to execute a citizen's arrest on O'Donoghue, and also refused to take any written statements from Hanes or his fellow anti-live-work activists who witnessed the incident.

Eileen Hirst, the chief of staff for Sheriff Michael Hennessey, refused to comment on the incident and said it was the subject of an internal investigation in the Sheriff's Department.

Frustrated with the sheriff's deputies, Hestor, Hanes, and the other eyewitnesses marched down to Northern Police Station and asked to file a criminal complaint. They were made to wait four hours before they were allowed to fill out reports, and before the police took pictures of the red, black, and blue marks on Hanes' neck. (SF Weekly was unable to obtain photos of Hanes' injuries by press time.)

When I called the SFPD to find out what had transpired in the two weeks since the report was filed, I encountered what appeared to be a Police Department stubbornly refusing to take any action against two prominent mayoral supporters who may have committed a violent crime.

At first I was told by SFPD spokesperson Officer Sherman Ackerson that the district attorney had to make the decision whether to charge O'Donoghue or Burton with a crime. (Despite public statements by O'Donoghue that Hanes attacked him and Burton, neither man has filed a police report.)

The DA's Office then told me it was the cops' job to investigate and arrest any suspects. A call back to the Police Department confirmed this.