I first met citizen Daniel Lurie at Four Barrell Coffee in the Mission District on a rainy November Saturday in 2023. I arrived a few minutes early, and he arrived a few minutes late. Lurie apologized, explaining he fit our coffee date in between dropping his kids off for a school function and picking them up afterward, a perfectly normal thing to do. And that was in fact my first impression of Lurie — normal. He was dressed in a suit with a crisp white shirt, he drove himself to the meeting, he asked if I wanted something to drink. “A latte with soy and no sweetener would be lovely,” I said. He dashed to the counter and waited in the busy weekend line, unrecognized by other patrons.
As we chatted, I found Lurie incredibly refreshing. He asked more questions about me and my new project The Voice of San Francisco then I asked him about his run against incumbent mayor London Breed. Despite his considerable wealth as one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss fortune, Lurie was down to earth and earnest, bright-eyed about the possibility of turning the city he loved around after years of decay at the hands of a “progressive” board more concerned with the rights of drug users and drug dealers than the rights of their constituents. He made sense. That’s why I endorsed him, along with Mark Farrell, in the 2024 election (along with London Breed as a third choice in an “anyone but Peskin” ranked choice battle).
On Nov. 5, 2024, Lurie did indeed become San Francisco’s 46th mayor. Along with spending millions of his own money on advertising himself as a “City Hall outsider” and attacking his rivals incessantly, he also made big promises — like his signature “1,500 shelter beds for the homeless in his first six months in office.” As a reporter covering politics in this city for many years, I knew he couldn’t achieve it, and when he didn’t, he came to the podium and admitted it. Again, refreshing. There have been other political missteps along the way, but also some successes. Lurie taking Jennifer Friedenbach, head of the Coalition on Homelessness, off of Room 200’s speed dial was a bold move. She’s had access to the mayor’s office for decades; her pro-encampment, antiresident rhetoric has caused much of what we see in the streets today, and what Lurie is now tasked with cleaning up.
As San Francisco’s leader, Lurie protects his image closely. He has continued to spend his own money generously — a February 2026 disclosure showed Lurie contributed $430,000 during the second half of 2025, and for the entire year, he spent nearly $900,000. Funding, which goes into his mayoral campaign committee, mostly went to outside consultants to boost not only his local but his national profile, and to promote his vision of a city on the rise punctuated with his signature “Let’s go, San Francisco!” tagline.
To do this, Lurie spent big on public relations consultants, including one I took issue with during his campaign: former San Francisco and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón spokesman and vocal anti-law enforcement agitator Max Szabo received $130,000 to do what Szabo does best — putting out problematic fires while fanning the flames against Lurie’s perceived rivals and critics, even if it means crossing ethical lines.
Lurie has also become an unlikely Instagram star, with a chunk of his money going to a team of exuberant youthful acolytes following him around as he touts everything from the opening of the latest dumpling restaurant to the virtues of adopting a drain (in a classic video in which Lurie is seen sweeping ankle-deep water backing up in the city’s ancient sewer system during a storm).
It all seemed in good fun until the night of March 5, 2026, when a video emerged showing Lurie standing with his hands in his pockets while one of his bodyguards brawled with a man outside the mayor’s shiny black Rivian SUV (also self-funded). The initial clip had vibes of high school where the rich kid pays the bullies for protection, but it quickly escalated as the man dropped the security officer to the ground, where he bloodied the back of his head. An additional video clip shot from above showed a more controversial view as the bodyguard, attempting to prevent the man from approaching Lurie, pushed him to the ground and into a pile of trash, which appears to have started the altercation. A second man moved toward the fight as it continued in the middle of the street, rushing the second bodyguard and shoving him to the pavement before running back to the sidewalk. Lurie is again seen observing, then walking away (off camera, Lurie later said, he went to get help from another officer).
The main aggressor, Tony Phillips, 44, was detained on suspicion of threat to an executive officer, possessing drug paraphernalia, petty theft, battery and assault upon a police officer, and resisting or obstructing an officer. The second man, Abraham Simon, 33, was booked for obstructing an officer and for an active out-of-county warrant. Neither of the men are originally from San Francisco and have been living on the streets as part of the open-air drug bazaar (surprise, surprise).
Additionally, Phillips had a stay-away order for Cedar Alley (near Larkin Street in the Tenderloin) where the fight occurred. He has a long criminal record that includes arrests for threats of violence, drug use, drug sales, and burglary, among other things, going back to 2014. On Aug. 16, 2019, Phillips stabbed 42-year-old Curtis Neal during a physical confrontation on Fern Street and Van Ness Avenue. Then-District Attorney George Gascón declined to press charges as Deputy District Attorney Max Szabo cited “lack of evidence” (part of the attack was caught on video). And yes, that’s the same Max Szabo now paid six figures from Lurie’s trust fund as part of his pricey P.R. team.
Lurie told reporters the incident started after he saw two people standing “in the middle of the street” and he stopped to ask them to move. “I feel like the people who are on our streets are part of my business,” Lurie said at the press conference. “I was worried about them, and I was worried about safety of pedestrians and cars coming.”
While some have criticized Lurie for not “getting involved,” I disagree with that sentiment. The very reason the mayor travels with armed police officers is that he is “the asset,” and the job of those officers is to protect him at any cost. What I do have an issue with is Lurie getting out of the car in the first place. Not only did he put his own life in danger, but he also put the lives of his officers, Phillips, Simon, and bystanders in danger. What if Phillips or Simon had grabbed one of the officers’ guns, or the officers felt threatened and shot one or both of the men? What if Lurie was caught in the crossfire, or a pedestrian walking by? Lurie took unacceptable risk for everyone near the scene of the altercation.
When the San Francisco Standard asked former mayors how they would have reacted, Breed said, “Many people in the Tenderloin, including those who were struggling, would stop to talk, say hello, or even walk alongside us to protect me and my detail. There was always a sense of respect.” My guess is that she would have stayed in the car and let her detail take care of the situation.
Perhaps the most on-brand answer came from Willie Brown, who said, “I had a job to do. My job was to make the city what the city became under my leadership. I felt it important enough to work every hour of the day on that. I didn’t feel it necessary to do an assessment on the city streets. But that’s a choice you can make.”
Ironically, Brown was attacked in 1998 — with a pie — by three members of a group called the Biotic Baking Brigade who were angry at his homeless policies. Brown didn’t wait for his security detail — he went after one of the pie throwers and took him to the ground.
As for Phillips, the main attacker in the Lurie case, during his first court appearance visiting judge Sylvia Husing defended him as the victim of “a violent assault.” She ordered him released despite prosecutors arguing that Phillips had failed to appear in court for numerous prior cases. As I previously reported, throughout 2025, and as recently as this past December, Phillips has repeatedly been released to the flawed pretrial diversion program.
Days later, Phillips was arrested for violating the court-ordered stay-away provision when officers “conducting homeless outreach” just happened to spot Phillips and took him into custody (if you believe they weren’t patrolling the area looking for Phillips, I have a big orange bridge to sell you).
“The SFPOA members are pleased and proud to protect Mayor Lurie .…” union president Louis Wong said about the incident. While that is their job, police officers serving as security detail should be able to do it with as little risk as possible, and that starts with Mayor Lurie staying in the car.
For his part, Lurie says he will continue to engage with people “struggling on the streets.” I understand this is part of his mayor-of-the-people persona, but besides being incredibly dangerous, it does nothing to solve the enormous opioid crisis engulfing the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods like the Tenderloin. To even make a dent, Lurie must hunker down with his team of consultants at City Hall and make them earn his money.