Gay candidate attacked with 4-foot sign by man shouting slurs in the street

Trevor Chandler, an out gay man running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has spoken out about being attacked in a potential hate crime while campaigning.

Chandler was about to canvass a street in his Mission District neighborhood when a man yelled homophobic slurs at him. Chandler walked away, crossing the street to avoid a confrontation, but he was followed.

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She said her solution to “gay garbage” could “land me in jail” while calling “gay churches… cancer.”

The man then lifted and threw what prosecutors described as a “four-foot A-frame sign” directly at Chandler. Chandler told NBC affiliate KNTV that he then called the police, realizing that “it was more than just some random one-off situation. It was something much more serious and scary.”

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Some neighbors heard the commotion and tried to intervene, with one staying with Chandler until the police arrived.

“I don’t know the background of the situation or what causes someone to spew that kind of hatred. Whether it’s something that’s been proceeded or a symptom of a crisis; one way or another, it was harrowing,” Chandler described the experience.

The perpetrator was identified as Jeffrey Landon, 58, in a press release from the San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkin’s office. The attack occurred on July 23, and Landon was arrested on July 25. He was charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and a hate crime.

“Mr. Landon is alleged to have shouted anti-LGBTQ slurs numerous times at a man walking on Harrison Street towards 24th Street in the Mission District,” the release stated. “The victim ignored Mr. Landon and continued walking on Harrison Street. Mr. Landon then allegedly followed him and continued to shout obscenities and anti-LGBTQ slurs.”

“By the time the police arrived, he had left the scene. As I was giving my statement, he returned to the scene, and they arrested him right there,” Chandler said.

Chandler is running to Represent District 9, covering the Mission and Portola neighborhoods, on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was endorsed last week as the top pick of the San Francisco Democratic Party in the race for the District 9 Supervisor seat. Chandler says he doesn’t know if his attacker knew who he was.

Chandler connected the incident back to a major point of his campaign: the need to increase safety in San Francisco.

“This is sadly too common,” Chandler said.

“Too many folks in San Francisco are experiencing incidents like this, and it reinforces why I’m so serious about safety in my campaign and I’m grateful for the SFPD and the DA, Brooke Jenkins, very quickly acting on this, and I’m going to keep going door-to-door. Nothing’s going to stop me from going out to talk to voters,” he told The Bayside Reporter.

District attorney Jenkins condemned the attack in the press release: “Hate crimes have no place in San Francisco and will be prosecuted.”

“We are proud of our diversity and will do everything we can to protect the safety of all our people. Hate crimes deeply impact individual victims and the larger community by sowing hate, mistrust, and division. We will not allow hate to flourish in San Francisco and stand for justice,” she stated.

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