SAN FRANCISCO – A woman was arrested Wednesday for stabbing a man in the chest with a pair of scissors at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
According to police, 60-year-old Joanna Peppars had been harassing customers when a restaurant employee, 61, tried to escort her out. The irate Peppars then kicked the front window of the restaurant and shattered it. Police said she then pulled out a pair of scissors and stabbed the employee in the chest.
Police then responded to the unit block of Mason Street. As Peppars was being arrested, she spit on one of the officers, police said.
Peppars has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, battery on a peace officer, and vandalism. According to available records, this is the first time Peppars has been arrested.
After being treated and assessed by San Francisco Fire Department paramedics, the victim requested no further medical assistance for the laceration in his chest.
This was one of three stabbings on Wednesday in San Francisco, according to a police recap. Yet it was the only stabbing incident that day after which an arrest was made. According to a San Francisco Examiner story published the same day, serious violent crimes in the city jumped 16 percent from January to May of this year, while arrest rates have hovered at 11 percent, down 4 percent from last year, the lowest it’s been in seven years.
“The overall arrest rate has declined by 42 percent since 2010,” said Max Szabo, a spokesperson for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, told the Examiner. “We’re making less than 18 arrests citywide every day.”
