UPDATE: Alleged assault last week in the Castro results in man's death

UPDATE (5:25PM): Supervisor Scott Wiener responded to an inquiry regarding the circumstances surrounding Cunningham's death,

"Jim’s death is troubling and very tragic.  I learned about the incident for the first time this past Monday, June 3 [...] At this point, it’s unclear whether Jim was assaulted or simply fell and hit his head.  Someone found him on the 100 block of Hartford Street before 2 a.m. on May 29 and called 911. The paramedics responded and took Jim to SF General.  Animal Care & Control came for his dog, which was guarding him and thus made it challenging for the paramedics to get to him at first.  At SF General, the paramedics notified the Deputy Sheriffs on duty.  Jim never regained consciousness. The police learned about the incident around the same time I did.  I can’t say for sure why the police weren’t notified sooner, but I’m speculating that the paramedics and hospital staff assumed the injuries resulted from a fall as opposed to an assault.  SFPD’s homicide detail is conducting a complete investigation, and the autopsy report is close to being done."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Petrelis Files reported on an alleged assault that happened in the evening last week that has the SFPD bewildered and looking for details. The assault, according to the San Francisco Bay Times' Facebook post, resulted in the death of the assault victim, a man named Jim Cunningham. The Bay Times got their information from a Facebook post by Steve Freitag, one of Cunningham's friends. Freitag's post notes that Cunningham passed away yesterday morning after being beaten unconscious somewhere around 17th and Hartford in the Castro while out walking his dog. Cunningham never regained consciousness. In the comments section of the post, Frietag also notes that after being found unconscious by police, "he hadn't been robbed, so the motive (hate crime?) is still unknown." We called the SFPD to find some details on this assault, but according to their media relations spokesperson, they haven't received any information (but have read the social media posts) and are desperately looking for information connected to the alleged assault. Freitag had noted the police did find Cunningham unconscious, but so far there is no record of it in their system. One confidential source said that the only facts that are known so far are that Cunningham was checked into the hospital at 2AM (the police don't know how or why) and that we will find out more information after an autopsy is completed. We reached out to Freitag to try and get some clarifying information, but he had no further details other than that Seth Himmelgarn of the BAR would be doing a story on it.