Friday Night’s Dolores Park Shooting: Questions Remain

A reader wrote in today about the shooting this past Friday evening of a young man near Dolores Park:

Hey. I live right at  20th and Dolores. I ran out the door on Friday night when I heard the poor guy moaning to find him, two onlookers (who had called 911), a few police officers, and — here’s the thing — a barefoot Marine kneeling over him, resuscitating the guy.

It was actually one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen — this guy, just a former Marine in the neighborhood who had heard the shots and ran outside. He found the victim no longer breathing, diagnosed the problem (it’s called a “sucking chest wound”) and used a discarded plastic bag that one of the police officers handed him to bring the guy back to life.  It was truly amazing.

Do we know whether the guy made it, or if there are any updates on finding the weapon or otherwise on the arrest?  I know they were holding someone in custody by the next morning, but I wonder if he was let go.

The reader also mentioned that the victim still had wad of money in one hand. No information on a possible motive for this attack has been released. Was this a robbery gone wrong?

One thing we’re learning as crime reporters here at Mission Loc@l is that we’re kind of weird. Most crime news skates from crisis to crisis. Perhaps because we’re more like a small town paper in a very busy city, we actually do call the SFPD regularly in the weeks after a crime like this one to try and figure out how the investigation is going. We do this especially because the Mission is a small town, and people here are genuinely concerned about what happens to their neighbors.

Sometimes we get a sympathetic person on the phone (the officers at the Mission Police Station are typically very helpful). But once an inspector gets assigned, then its almost impossible to find out even minor details about a case. That’s what’s happening now. This is just to let you know that we’re still working to find out this information.

And also to let you know that there’s a heroic, shoeless, ex-Marine in your midst. Though he’s probably put his shoes back on by now.

UPDATE: The SFPD tells us that the victim is in stable condition. The gun was never found. One person rounded up during a sweep of the area shortly after the shooting was taken to the station and booked for narcotics possession, but was never re-booked for aggravated assault, which means that he’s not likely to be a suspect. No new arrests have been made.