Gabriel Shin, a firefighter in San Francisco, lost his job and his health care benefits after he was nearly beaten to death by one of his firefighter colleagues, Robert Mohammad.
Mohammad apparently had a family crisis in 2021 and then got angry when some at the fire department were discussing it:
ABC 7 NEWS – San Francisco firefighter Robert Mohammad had a family crisis in July 2021; we won’t discuss details out of respect for his privacy. But his colleagues were concerned about him.
Former San Francisco firefighter Gabriel Shin told the I-Team, “People offered to cook for him, people offered to work his shifts for free and he rebuffed my offers. But I’ve never had a conflict with him prior to this.”
Six months after that family crisis, firefighter Gabriel Shin tells me Muhammad called to ask who in the firehouse was talking about his private business.
Gabriel Shin: “Robert, I said, I take ownership for speaking about that and you know, because we were concerned for you but I’m not going to tell you who told me. And he said the next time he sees me, he’s going to hurt me.”
Dan Noyes (reporter): “He said that?”
Shin: “Yeah. Well, I mean, he used a pejorative, but yes.”
Noyes: “Well, I’d like to know what he said.”
Shin: “The next time I see you, I’m going to (beep) you up. That’s exactly what he said.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Mohammad looked up Shin’s home address and then showed up at his home with a long fire hydrant wrench:
Court records show that, two days after that phone call, Robert Muhammad used a computer at Station 25 to retrieve Shin’s work schedule and his home address, and left the station with what’s called a “hydrant spanner” – a heavy, brass wrench measuring 15 inches that’s used to turn the water on and off. Muhammad drove across the bridge to Shin’s home in Oakland and found him out front, sweeping the sidewalk.
“I heard somebody say, ‘Are you going to tell me, are you going to tell me who told you?'” Shin said. “And I turned around and I said, ‘Robert, what are you doing here?’ He said, ‘Who are you protecting?’ I said, ‘I forgot.’ And then he reached into his back pocket. He pulled out the large brass spanner, and he started swinging at my head.”
A witness called 911.
Emergency operator: “911 emergency, what are you reporting?”
Caller: “Yes, somebody’s being beat with a wrench on 9th Avenue and East 19th Street.”
Court records allege Muhammad swung the wrench at Shin’s head approximately twelve times, breaking his arms as he tried to protect himself, giving him a concussion. One blow sent Shin’s glasses across the street, he said. The attack stopped only after a neighbor who works against human trafficking pulled a handgun and confronted Muhammad.
Shin told us, “And then he slowly dropped the spanner and looked backwards and walked away towards his car, which is approximately a block-and-a-half away.”
What’s unbelievable is that Robert Mohammad never lost his city job after this attempted murder of his colleague. Because of this Gabriel Shin filed a civil rights lawsuit against Mohammad, the city of San Francisco, his fire chief and others. In the lawsuit Shin says that his direct supervisors at the fire department told him to drop the charges against Mohammed and to not cooperate with police:
Robert Muhammad has pleaded “not guilty” to felony assault with a deadly weapon, with several enhancements and one special allegation – great bodily injury. His criminal defense attorney, Jim Bustamente, has declined to be interviewed about this case in the past and has not returned our phone calls and email this week asking for reaction to the Gabriel Shin interview.
In addition to the criminal case, Shin has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco, Robert Muhammad, Chief Jeanine Nicholson and other members of the San Francisco Fire Department for Battery, Assault, Race and Color Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, Retaliation and more. Shin’s attorney, James Torres, says Robert Muhammad never faced discipline and never missed a paycheck. “You have an individual that the chief has allowed to continue working all this time, continue drawing taxpayer salary all this time after attempting to murder a fellow firefighter.”
The lawsuit also says several of Shin’s direct supervisors ordered him to drop the charges, and to not cooperate with the police investigation of the attack.
“The first person called me and said, ‘Is there any way we can work this out?’ Gabriel Shin said. “The second person called me and said, ‘You can’t charge him. You know, you’ve got to drop the charges. That man’s got a family.’ And of course, I was angry. I said, ‘You know, he just tried to kill me.'”
The lawsuit says, “They treated Shin with startling prejudice and Muhammad with baffling favor from the outset because they saw one difference: Shin is Asian and Muhammad is Black.” In their answer, the defendants deny each and every allegation.
When Shin refused an interview at the fire department because he knew it wasn’t going to be fair to him, they fired him and canceled his health benefits:
Still recovering from his injuries and PTSD, Gabriel Shin refused a fire department interrogation which he believed would not be about the attack, but focused on who was talking about Robert Muhammad’s family crisis.
“Within days of that, Chief Nicholson and those deputies took away his pay,” James Torres said. “They took away his health insurance before he could even recover from those injuries.”
The racial component of this wasn’t so much with the murderous attack by Mohammad. Race could have played a part in his motivation but we don’t know that from the story. But it does become clear that race was a motivation in how differently both Mohammad and Shin were treated by his San Francisco supervisors and colleagues. After all, this was attempted murder and the city never batted an eye at Mohammad? Shin had a witness who saw the entire attack and even put a stop to the deadly attack with a firearm. And yet Shin is the one who is persecuted for wanting justice to be done??
It could be that this goes deeper than race. I don’t know anything about Robert Mohammad, but if he’s Muslim as his last name may suggest, that could be the other reason the city got fully behind this wannabe killer.
ABC 7 News added one last detail from the lawsuit:
One other item from the federal court file –
911 dispatcher: “San Francisco police.”
Brandon Kleinman: “Hey, I’ve got a guy following me. I just served him some legal documents. I’m on Treasure Island. Wonder if you could help me out.”
Last year, a process server went to the Fire Department Training Center where Robert Muhammad now works. After he handed the firefighter a summons, Brandon Kleinman tells us he got into a high-speed chase with Muhammad, so he called 911. “And it was raining super hard, there’s construction on the island. It’s like, really sketchy.”
911 dispatcher: “Subject now agitated and he’s following you in his vehicle?”
Kleinman: “Yeah.”
Kleinman says, “We’re going like 75 miles an hour weaving in and out of other cars. We’re not the only ones on the road. And he’s coming up and he’s swerving, trying to hit me.”
Muhammad finally backed off. Gabriel Shin’s lawyer tells me they informed the City Attorney and filed a declaration about what happened into the case file.