SFPD Releases Statement on Thursday's Officer-Involved Shooting

Since protesters continued to vandalize businesses through the weekend, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage at Farina, Locanda, Live Fit Gym, Wells Fargo and others, SFPD released a statement, presumably in hopes of countering the slew of misinformation out there about Thursday's officer-involved shooting.

On Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 8:06PM, two plain clothes officers assigned to the San Francisco Police Department Gang Task Force were working with two Probation Officers from the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department. These officers were participating in Operation Night Light which is a Juvenile Probation program designed to ensure that youth on probation are off the streets and home after curfew and as part of the Police Department's violence prevention strategy of Interrupt, Predict and Organize (IPO) which seeks to: interrupt violent crimes, to predict where retaliation may occur and prevent additional violence and to organize community groups in an effort to plan new long term strategies for crime prevention.

While traveling east bound on 14th Street near Natoma Street, the SFPD officers noticed a subject who they recognized as a gang member this is on parole. One of the SFPD officers got out of his unmarked vehicle and approached the suspect. That suspect ran westbound on 14th Street on the sidewalk and the officer gave chase. During the foot pursuit, the suspect produced an assault pistol. The officer ordered the suspect to drop the weapon. The suspect refused to comply with the officer’s order. Instead, the suspect turned towards the officer, with gun in hand. Fearing for his life, the officer discharged his firearm. The suspect was struck by gun fire and was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The suspect’s weapon, a “Tec 9” machine pistol, which was loaded with 25 rounds of 9mm ammunition, was recovered at the scene. The second subject was also detained at the scene.

This is an ongoing investigation in its early stages. This incident is being investigated by the San Francisco Police Department Homicide Detail which investigates officer involved shootings, the SFPD Internal Affairs Unit, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the Office of Citizens Complaints.

Any witnesses or anyone with information on this to this incident are asked to call the SFPD Homicide Detail at (415) 553-1145 or the Anonymous Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or text-a-tip to TIP411 with SFPD in the message.

The name of the suspect is not available at this time as he is still hospitalized with non life threatening injuries. Once he is booked into County Jail, that information will be available. Suspect is a 22 year old male who is on active parole for assault with a deadly weapon, firearm.

Comments (4)

The people protesting and smashing windows are idiots. Simple as that. One less gang member on the streets, the cops were in the right in the instance.

Thank you SFPD for protecting the Mission from this violent criminal. He might have been on his way to spraying bullets into a crowd somewhere. And the officer used measured force, not killing anyone or hurting bystanders.
Too bad that the vandals used this incident as an excuse to damage the property of small businesses and to cost the city a bundle in overtime and repairing damage to city property.

The author of this statement needs to be fined for abusing the passive voice. “The officer discharged his firearm” then “the suspect was struck by gunfire” make the whole thing sound like a series of unrelated events.