Matt Dorsey serves on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He delivered this memoriam to his family friend Scott Garvey, who was shot and killed in his apartment in Putney on July 7, at the board's July 29 meeting.
SAN FRANCISCO-I ask that we adjourn today's meeting in remembrance of Scott Garvey, a deeply compassionate, creative, and loving soul whose tragic recent death has left his family and many others reeling, including friends and loved ones here in San Francisco.
I grew up as a close friend of the Garveys, and I have known them well most of my life. Scott attended St. Mary's Catholic School in Westfield, Massachusetts, with his older brother and me, and it was perhaps there that Scott developed his commitment to social justice, which in his life would become his most admired trait.
Scott was a poet, a musician and, above all, a giver, someone who carried the burden of an outsized heart in a world that too often shuns those who struggle.
Although he faced mental health challenges most of his adult life, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Scott's generous spirit and his good heart were undiminished.
He found purpose in offering comfort and care to others in need, and he would often use whatever discretionary funds he had from his limited disability income to help others, to buy clean socks or warm gloves or meals to share with unhoused neighbors.
For Scott, it wasn't performative. It was who he was. His impulse to help and to give back just came naturally to him.
To family members and friends, Scott's empathy was radiant. Friends described him as soft-spoken and poetic, someone who listened more than he spoke, and who had the rare gift of making others feel truly seen. His art, especially his poetry and his drumming, was an extension of his emotional generosity. Like many artists, he could find meaning in pain and create beauty out of struggle.
San Francisco held a very special place in Scott's heart; for a time, many years ago, he lived in our city's storied Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which was especially meaningful to him as a talented musician himself.
When he moved to Vermont earlier this year, along with his mother, Judy, or Mama J, as she's affectionately known, he wanted to be closer to his sister Kara. It was with the hope of accessing better care in the region where he grew up that he could continue on his path of healing.
Sadly, he scarcely had the chance.
* * *
Earlier in July, in the midst of a mental health crisis, Scott lost his life when, unarmed at the time, he was shot in an encounter with a Vermont State Police trooper.
His family is now left to grapple with unimaginable grief.
His mother and sister are both haunted by knowledge of compassion and grace that Scott wasn't extended in his last moments, when he needed it most.
They're also humbled by the love and kindness of friends and family members, even neighbors and strangers in the community in Putney, Vermont, who've been moved to help the Garvey family and to heal.
In remembering Scott today, his family asks that we do not solely mourn, but also take it as a call to conscience and that we carry Scott's spirit of social justice in how we lead in the policies we pass, in how we care for our own most vulnerable, in how we encounter those in behavioral crises, and in the hopes we hold for a better world.
Rest in peace, Scott. May your memory be a blessing and a reminder of what we need to change.
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