City surveillance cameras "see no evil"

Witnesses told police Hatim Mansori was sitting at the back of the number 49 Muni bus, holding a blue balloon on his lap and keeping to himself, when a 6'2", 180-pound man suddenly stabbed the eleven-year-old in the stomach. They said the vicious attack was unexpected, and completely unprovoked. Hatim had not spoken to the man, or even looked at him. 

Hatim was on his way home from baseball practice at Marina Middle School. It was his first time riding the bus alone, so a passenger used the boy's cell phone to call his mother Laila Elfazouzi, an immigrant from Morocco. The family rushed to meet Hatim at San Francisco General Hospital, where he was in the Intensive Care Unit undergoing emergency surgery to repair the damage to his intestines and liver.  That's where the I-Team met Hatim and his family today.

The entire attack should have been caught on video by the surveillance camera pointed at the back of the bus. However, Muni says, the camera was broken -- so what could have been some of the best evidence against a dangerous criminal was never recorded. 

Muni spokesman Judson True says other cameras on the bus were recording, and the agency has turned that footage over to police. He says the fact that the rear camera was broken is "unacceptable", and he says Muni is looking into ways to improve the reliability of it's cameras. 

The man who stabbed Hatim jumped off the bus at the corner of 19th and Mission and escaped. This time, though, one of the city's 70 anti-crime surveillance cameras captured video of him fleeing the scene. We asked for a copy of that video to use in tonight's story, so viewers could help identify the suspect, but police told us the video quality was not good enough to clearly identify the man. 

Police are asking anyone with information about Hatim's stabbing to call their anonymous tip line at 415-575-4444.  Or you can text the SFPD a tip by entering TIP411 in the "To" field and the keyword SFPD in the text field, along with the tip, of course. 

We've done a lot of stories about city surveillance cameras over the years. In May, we used graphic footage of felony crimes on Muni buses. The suspects were caught on tape, but they never got arrested or prosecuted. 

Last year, we ran a series of stories about the Muni bus drivers who received the most public complaints. Surveillance videos we obtained under the Public Records Act showed exactly what so many passengers were so angry about. One driver told a woman in a wheelchair he wouldn't pick her up.

We also reported on how footage from San Francisco's anti-crime cameras hasn't resulted in many arrests, but it did help get two suspects off the hook for murder charges.

This story began with a tip -- e-mail us through this website or call 1-888-40-I-Team if you have a story for us.

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