Dominick Jeremiah Valle-Buitrago
An “extremely high-priority” sexual battery case involving a 13-year-old girl who was dragged into a restroom near the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park and assaulted, has been paused for a mental health evaluation of the defendant. Dominick Jeremiah Valle-Buitrago faces multiple felony charges related to the assault on the 13-year-old, including aggravated kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, lewd or lascivious acts with a child, and sexual battery.
On Dec. 4, 2025, his trial proceedings were suspended to assess his mental fitness to stand trial; they will remain on hold until Judge Charles Compton of Behavior Health Court determines he is competent following examination. On Nov. 21, the public defender sought reduced bail while keeping details sealed, despite the defendant’s posing a grave risk to public safety. Valle-Buitrago is subject to a restraining order, renewed through 2028, obtained by a neighbor for harassment, throwing rocks and trash at their home, and other violent behavior. When asked in the interview below whether her grandson understands the gravity of the situation, his grandmother replies, “I think he does, but he doesn’t want to see the reality of what he did.”
Elsa Buitrago raised Dominick Valle-Buitrago from the age of three after he was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father who was frequently incarcerated. “He was a very sick child. He has mental issues,” she says. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and developmental delay around age 12 or 13, he functions, in her words, as “14, but he has the mind of a 9-year-old … His father is a no-good bum.” She hopes he receives treatment in a mental health facility. Upon turning 18, the youth mental health support he had been receiving ceased, leaving him in his grandmother’s sole care. Now 73 and lacking family assistance to supervise him, she says that prior attempts to secure institutionalization were unsuccessful.
If mental health issues later suspend proceedings and competency cannot be restored with treatment (typically within a maximum of two years), the San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins may petition for a Murphy conservatorship, an indefinite civil commitment in a secure facility for defendants charged with violent felonies who remain dangerous due to mental illness, prioritizing public safety.
Antoine Watkins
After more than four years, “Grandpa Vicha” Ratanapakdee’s case will hear opening statements on Dec. 8, 2025, in Dept 23, under presiding Judge Linda Colfax. Colfax has an extensive history of granting probation and reducing sentences in multiple cases involving serial perpetrators, including the $1 million smash-and-grab in Union Square. Surveillance video below in 2021 showed defendant Antoine Watkins violently shoving Grandpa Vicha to the ground, which resulted in the elder’s death two days later.
Deputy Public Defender Anita Nabha in the Grandpa Vicha case, blamed years of delays on “Covid backlogs” and the need for “important work” to prep cases. Our previous coverage on San Francisco Superior Courts has revealed a pattern of intentional delays that allow defendants to accrue “two-for-one” sentencing credits for time spent in pre-trial detention, effectively cutting their post-conviction prison sentences in half. This strategy works exceptionally well when the evidence against a defendant is airtight.
Thea Brenda Hopkins
Thea Brenda Hopkins, whose actions are linked to two separate assaults on senior Asian women, one resulting in the death of 63-year-old Yanfang Wu in Bayview, will be considered for mental health diversion under Judge Michael Begert on Dec. 15, 2025. Wu’s death in July 2023 was initially ruled accidental by then San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott and District Attorney Jenkins. After video emerged of a second incident in March 2024 showing Hopkins kicking and assaulting a 71-year-old Asian woman, the original ruling was amended to battery and manslaughter, charges criticized as overly lenient by members of the Asian American community. Even former Mayor London Breed urged the SFPD to release footage of the fatal shoving, a request that went unfulfilled under former Chief Scott.