Nineteen-year-old Cesar Bermudez was killed and another man was injured in a double shooting near 24th and Harrison streets on Wednesday, police said.
The victims were approached at around 6 p.m. by two men who shot them. Bermudez died at the scene and the other victim was taken to San Francisco General Hospital. His condition was not immediately disclosed, but according to police Sgt. Matt Rodgers, he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the foot.
Wednesday’s killing was the third homicide in the Mission in the last eight days. Jose Escobar was shot and killed early Saturday morning on 16th Street. Caesar Chuc, a cook at Serpentine Restaurant, died from injuries he sustained when a group of suspects attacked him on Valencia Street the previous Tuesday.
“Right now we have our homicide investigators who are out here due to the fatality, and we also have our gang task force that’s out here too, trying to investigate and find out what’s going on,” said Sgt. Carlos Manfredi. “This is still very preliminary, so we’re trying to gather more information.”
Police were still on the scene as of 8 p.m. Family members of the deceased, some weeping, stood nearby.
Supervisor David Campos, who came to the scene, said he was in contact with San Francisco’s police chief and the Mission police captain about adding officers to the Mission.
“We want to make sure that we protect everyone,” Campos said. “This is very sad, and it’s going to take all of us coming together to make sure this violence stops.”
By 10:09 p.m. police had shut down the entire block of Mission Street between 24th and 25th streets to traffic. There were over 15 police officers with flashlights on the corner of 24th and Mission, searching for guns or other evidence and speaking to potential witnesses.
According to officers on site, the 2800 block of Mission is a potential crime scene. A cell phone was found in the middle of the street and the block will be closed off until the phone is photographed and placed into evidence.
In another development, four men were handcuffed, two on Mission Street and two on Osage Street, while officers interrogated them. It was not clear whether the men were victims or suspects, according to Rodgers.
“We are in the middle of a burgeoning gang issue and we’re all caught in the middle,” Rodgers said.
He advises all residents to observe their surroundings and report any information they might have.
This post was updated at 10:50 p.m.
Boog! We miss you like hell bro. We all know the real you and you didn’t deserve this.. You were a good friend and a good son who always helped his mom out. Always buying stuff for his Lil cousins. H.i.p. man you will be always in my heart
i would really like for u guys to be posting things like that have respect for my family please.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
STOP WITH NEGATIVE COMMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It seems to me that the people at this meeting (http://missionlocal.org/2012/10/mission-leaders-craft-strategies-in-wake-of-violence/) know what is going on, know what works both short and long term not only to stem the violence but to prevent it in the future. How do we build a bridge between the folks in this room and the broader community in the Mission District? Instead of another community meeting where we reiterate what the problems are and point fingers it would be great to have a dialog about what works, what doesn’t, and how to sustainably fund the stuff that works.
More foot patrols, more violence interrupters, more opportunities for youth caught up in the violence (jobs, after school programs, transportation to/from those programs, programs like the Wraparound Project). All good suggestions in my opinion, but they all cost money, and if the $ comes out of Fed/State/City budgets they require political will to funnel them into this neighborhood.
So – what other sources of funding and opportunity are there in the neighborhood?
And what will the impact be – if any – on these efforts if Proposition 30 passes? Fails?
People want to help. Some people can invest their time, some can invest $, some can invest with their vote. We need a forum to figure out how/where to make these investments.
I agree with you. I’m tired of everyone complaining. The Mission Peace Collaboration is awesome and I’m very happy to hear about the work they are doing.
Sadly, in the short term we need police in the neighborhood so that the Peace Coalition can do its work.
Write to Supervisor Campos & Chief Suhr to ask them to get patrols around Garfield and 24th st. This is something we can do as a community. It is not a matter of budget but one of will. We need cops from other districts down here for a while until things settle down. He needs to hear from people who believe that police patrols can be a part of the solution to make our community safer. He already hears from much of the community that police are not welcome here but in my view that’s not working out very well.
Seems to me that these meetings happen with the politicians and the police…the families of the boys involved do not participate….too busy, too overwhelmed, head in the sand? Who knows…but those few families are the ones that NEED to wake up and realize their kidss are the ones involved with the gangs and the drugs and they are recruiting young kids from the block into this lifestyle. The boys are savvy enough to set up a drug selling operation, to find the cool logo’ed clothes, to elude the police with their drug sales….. certainly they are smart enough to search and apply for jobs…..
And to you…. I pose the question… Have you ever been the victim of a crime or know somebody that has been? If so how would you like it if someone came up to you and said you must have done something to bring that upon yourself. No matter what…. It is not ok to murder another human being… POINT BLANK PERIOD.
I’m going to stand with what I said. With your logic most victims of crimes made poor decisions to get them where they are.
I agree with Another Neighbor completely.. I live two doors away from where this happened (my family heard the shots, and had the witness this horrific event, along with a few others in our many years here). While, it is NEVER ok to take another life… It is almost always gang on gang here locally and if these kids were doing something else this would not happen to them. These kids, as unfortunate their background might be, are not up to good and this is unfortunately a consequence of that behavior. Believe me… not innocent kids just sitting there ….
If there’s one thing I have learned in life it’s don’t assume. Although you might live there Don’t sit there saying it’s almost always gang on gang, when you don’t know 100% what happened in this situation.
The resentment about the designer ice cream & ‘upscale’ shops is amusing and so misplaced…there would not be an opportunity for the new businesses to move in if there were no vacancies – there are many vacancies. The new businesses are supported day and some nights. Do we really need another taqueria on 24th?
Agree some parents are more engaged than others. It’s a lovely cultural tradition to have many generations living in the home….but instill some responsibility and reality in the young adult men who live in the home.
Generally the parents have jobs…why not the boys? Why turn a blind eye to the obvious spending the boys are doing on their liquor, electronics, clothes?
There are a few houses on the block that have 10+ people living in them – no wonder the boys are sitting on the stoops 12 hours a day. They drink, they sell drugs, they eat, they get fat, they litter. they have very little respect for anyone. Not all the boys but many. THEY ALSO INVITE AND ATTRACT A VERY BAD ELEMENT hence the shootings – 3 within a year about 20 years apart. Those of us who live on the block know the boys at the center of this. It’s really not the complicated….don’t sell drugs on the block, on the stoops of your neighbors….and your friends won’t get shot/killed.
One family got their son off the block and it has made a tremendous difference to the energy on the block. It would be great to have a few other parents follow that lead for the sake of their sons and peace of mind for the neighbors and neighbors kids.
You as a neighbor should be engaging in a dialogue with the young people or doing something positive for your neighborhood than coming on a website to express your displease.
How about instead of everyone arguing about who to place the blame on or whose ignorant or blah, blah, blah, we just take a moment to realize that 2 people just died and have a moment of silence.
Because doing nothing and saying nothing is what led to yet another shooting this week and maybe another next week. I’m sad for Cesar and his family and friends, but doing nothing doesn’t honor them or protect the next victim. Neither does an article that paints Compos as a compassionate civic leader who’s fixing the problem; he may talk the talk but there’s still no police presence in the square 8-weeks into it.
Clean up the park and the adjacent streets. Ban adults not accompanying kids. Create one safe haven for the kids to play and have a police presence on hand to react to events nearby. Start from there, start right now, and then think about the big plan.
For everybody else talking bad on our community stop!!!! Try helping us instead of talking down on us!!!! U don’t know where we come fom or how bad most of us got it! Try helping!!!!
David: By “our community,” do you mean the Mission? A gang? Other?
I’m just unclear because when I asked above what the community can do to help, I was referring to people that live and work in the Mission.
If you’re referring to gangs as “our community”, how can we (Mission community) help you? Please help open the dialogue.
I certainly don’t feel comfortable walking up to a gang member and talking to him about his gang and violence in the neighborhood and does he need/want a job or a GED… I’m scared to even offer condolences for the loss of a friend.
It’s getting scary out there.
Wen I say our community I’m saying the mission period! Hard to believe people are sayin he must have brought this on himself u people are a joke and no help! He didn’t deserve to die!
I agree david he was a good boy and my family will miss him imencly
He use to come in and out our house like he lived h
ere !!!!! R.I.P ceaser you were like one of my own!!!!
Cesar may u rest in peace my brother!!!! U were a good man and may UR mother find some peace in knowing her child was a good friend a good son and most of all a good person I gona miss UR fat ass(lol) from the bottom of my heart r.i.p lil bro!!!!! Cheers!!!! I’m gona drink the lean for u hahaha!!!!!
H.i.p Cesar !!!! Rest my friend!
So many shootings around Garfield Square, where young kids are playing soccer – ironically as part of the police’s own youth league. Every night the square is surrounded by, and occupied by, people drinking, gambling and selling/using drugs – sometimes wearing gang colors. These are all activities that can blow up into violence, centered around an area where kids can easily be caught in the cross-fire. It would be useful to have a police presence to clear out the park and stop the illegal activities before they escalate into gun battles.
Yes, in the log term, programs to give youths a path out of gangs is needed; but in the short term a police presence during times when kids from the neighborhood are actually participating in such activities is needed. A few security cameras around the square would really help, firstly by keeping certain groups of people away, and secondly to help identify the perpetrators of crimes.
Last night’s shooting happened at 6:10. Nine or ten rapid-fire shots, presumably from a semi-automatic, that could be heard several blocks away. It was 9 minutes before the first police car arrived. At which time potential witnesses had left and anyone needing to hide a weapon and leave the scene was probably 10 blocks away.
RIP Cesar. You were let down by a city that won’t put police in your neighborhood until after shots are fired and is leaving it to descend into gangland. David Campos et al should be thinking about long term strategies, but first they should be asking why there was no police presence before last night’s shooting – given the recent spate – and will there be a presence tonight and tomorrow, walking the streets, patrolling the square and installing cameras. If the police don’t control the streets, gangs will.
Or will tonight be the same: groups of men gambling on Treat Ave, the smell of cannabis drifting over the soccer field, people drinking on 25th St, half a dozen addicts crashed out on the grass, the occasional naked homeless guy in the girls’ bathroom so that the kids can’t use them and gangs roaming the streets with guns which they seem to be able to use with impunity in broad daylight – and just walk away.
The city must be taking in a lot of tax dollars from the new businesses down on lower 24th street, it’s blossomed in the last couple of years, maybe they should be reinvesting some of it and trying to make it safe to live and do business there before they start boarding up. Kids with nowhere to play and feel safe today are tomorrow’s gang members.
Amen, Pascal.
According to Supervisor David Campos there ARE programs that he personally, supposedly, is advocating for at risk youth. So, there is money for these programs. Where are they? Good question. I cannot find them, and I certainly do not see any changes in gang-related crime in the Mission. Please think about your vote in the upcoming election. The solution is not to blame or judge. Vote for people that will attack these issues. However, we are human and we do judge. I would hold some parents, not all, responsible for some of the kids’ crime. My family is not privileged. I grew up with challenges, but crime was never one of them for me or most of my cousins. Why, because my mother and aunts would kick our a88. They ran the roost, not the kids. Lastly, having designer ice cream in the ‘hood has nothing to do with anything.
“By 10:09 p.m. police had shut down the entire block of Mission Street between 24th and 25th streets to traffic. There were over 15 police officers with flashlights on the corner of 24th and Mission, searching for guns or other evidence and speaking to potential witnesses.”
Was this part of the investigation related to the shooting at 24th and Harrison or something else? I was leaving the BART stop just before 10 p.m. and many of us heard several shots fired around the area of 24th and Mission by the BART station. Could the police have been looking for the source of those shots? Haven’t seen much info about that incident yet today. Anyone know anything?
I am looking for more information also. It seems to me that there were multiple events happening at the same time and they just got blended somehow. I was at the bus stop on 24th street and Mission leaning against the bus shelter with my back to 25th street when I heard shots and then felt debri or shards of metal hitting the shelter behind my back, so I started running and so did other people. People were just confused and some people did not even blink but sure enough within a few minutes police arrived ( at least 3 unmark police cars full of cops and a couple of the standard police cars) I notice because I flash them with a pocket flashlight and pointed towards 25th street. In the middle of the whole thing and before the police arrived I remember hearing a couple other shots, not sure where those might have been coming from, maybe those were the ones around 19th st but this point I was concerned about a friend that was meeting me there, so at that point I think any sound can sound like shots, but then some people were checking eachother out to see if the were hit, seeing that made me do the same. I don’t know what really happened but What I know is that I heard shots and then things hitting the panel of the bus shelter I was leaning against and that I was ok and so it was all the people I saw in that area at that moment.
I believe it was a seperate incident. I was in Rosamunde last night when the gun was fired outside from possibly in front of the grocery shop. A large group of indivduals scattered, a number of them running across the street, and everyone in Rosamunde hit the floor as well. One of the scattering outside people ran inside, then quickly left. About 5-6 police cars showed up within minutes mostly blocking the street but letting some traffic through. Then a couple tore off and about another 6 cars blew right past continuing towards Cesar Chavez direction. Watched then handcuff one individual outside Mr. Pollo, and then just walk around the area with their flashlights searching for casings (I’m assuming) or other things.
Lets give these kids an opportunity to work, once they see these checks coming in they’ll stop banging, killing, selling drugs etc. I love my mission neighborhood but this has to stop. Set up more B&G clubs on 24 and 16. I want to be able to see my people grow old and not die young.
What does buying expensive ice cream have to do with responsible parenting? Last time I checked, instilling values in your kids was free.
Please read long-time mission resident’s comments again. Designer ice cream is not the gist of it. You can say that the dialogue is between only the two of you, but you would be wrong. You have made your coments public. The fact is that you see The Mission only from the point of an outsider, not as someone who is familiar with the realities of our neighborhood. Now, please go to Humphrey Slocum’s for dessert.
My family came to the Mission in 1890. The fact is that you closed your post with a sentence urging me to get ice cream at HS. Apparently, designer ice cream is the gist of it. For you,
Grow up.
Around 10pm, I walked by the candles and liquor bottle ‘memorial’ …there was a small group of young men plotting how they were going to shot and hurt the people that did this.
I’ve lived in the neighborhood a long time….I have a hard time believing that these young men who get drugs and can do the math to sell drugs can’t get an entry level job in the city so they can learn, gain experience and exposure, and work their way to another, better job….like millions of people have done. People withe education and without often start in an entry level position and move on from there – why not these guys?
And their parents….where do they think these boys get the $ for cell phones, logo’ed clothes, expensive sneakers, good booze and nice bicycles?
Why are they allowed to live in their homes when some parents must know that the hours of hanging out on the street they are selling drugs?
What they are doing is so very obvious. You can bet that bad things will happen when one is dabbling or immersed in the drug world…
Many people on the street are so disgusted with how these few young men make the street dangerous for the majority of people who live on the street and are not involved with the drug trade.
As with the other shootings on Harrison … people will stay inside and away for a while….and then they will slither back…until the next shooting.
dnt just asume people are gang relatd and gangsters it could of been u if u were caught n the wrong place at the wrong time
Your comment comes from ignorance. You come from a place of entitlement and privilege. The budget for programs for youth-at-risk has been slashed. The budget for anti-gang youth counselors who can intervene when something is about to happen, well, that money is gone. After-school programs? Where. With what money.
You have a hard time believing these kids can’t get jobs? What world do you live in? And now you are blaming the parents, too? People around here have a very hard time getting by. Not everyone can go down the street and buy designer ice cream, or eat at the steadily growing glut of trendy and expensive restaurants beginning to line the 24th street corridor. Many of us have to squeeze our dollars together just to buy groceries.
If you want to see a change, then be that change. talk to the youth. Find out what they are up to. Encourage them. Give them some hope. Don’t just scurry by and ignore them like they are trash.
May Cesar rest in peace. Que descanza en paz. May his family, his mother find solace. Go take her a plate of food or give her some flowers. Please. Do something more then just judge and think there are easy answers.
I agree with neighbor’s comments and his questions are valid. The families here need to be held accountable. I came to the US as a child and was raised by a single parent in poor conditions. My mother worked many jobs some of which I helped her with and managed to make a life for myself. Today i work hard and still go to school at night all week so I can better my life and start a family hopefully. I do not and have never made excuses. These kids need to grow up, get jobs or go to school. City College is very affordable and even free if you qualify. I basically have 12 hour days all week. “Be the change”? That should start at home.
Yep.
Long-time Mission District resident–
Thank you for your post. You make a good point. We should all come together when young lives are lost. I would love to bring the mother/family food…or anything to give a small amount of comfort
I have a young gang banger living across the street from me. With his Grandmother. The landlord told me she lets him live with her rent free. Thanks, Abuelita.
They described the suspects to be two African American males. I doubt this is related to the shooting on 16th street
Who is/are the “they” who described the suspects?
Word on the street
At 9:40pm, there were about 15 police cars on Mission at 19th. Related?
First of all my he rest in peice and second of all u guys are lookin n the wrong place this is not the work of ms13 because they would never have the balls to get out of a car and walk up to someone and shot them anywhere close to 24th st and second the brawl on 16th st was not even gang related I hope they find who did this and the other one in hospital remembers there faces
None ya bizz: I think you’re right. I meant the shooting at 16th and Caledonia (maybe?). I didn’t mean the earlier fight, though it’s possible that fight is somehow connected to this spike in violence. Even if the cook who was murdered in the fight wasn’t gang affiliated he could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong gangsters.
You’re also right from what I understand about the Sureños. They are less connected to the community and do drive-bys where they shoot indiscriminately and more “innocent” people get injured. Whereas Norteños are more connected to the community and will walk up and shoot someone then get in a waiting car to drive away. Thoughtful.
Thank you, Michael, for your thoughtful reflections.
I walked by the crime scene at 8pm and again at 9:30pm and witnessed many mothers crying, and youth shocked and frozen by the trauma…this will take a lot of healing and community support.
Comprehensive coverage of this tragic issue. Important to see this reporting, while other media like Sfgate hasn’t covered it themselves (they actually just have a link to MissionLocal).
Hope to see continued coverage of the healing process and stories of how the youth are coping and supporting each other.
If one were to read between the lines, this appears to be retaliation for this weekend’s killing on 16th and Valencia (though the vigil is setup at Rondel), and likely other recent violence that seems unconnected. In addition to candles, the vigil has gang graffiti stating MS13 territory is 16 through 19 (which I hope SFPD graffiti abatement cleans up ASAP).
I thought there was a federal crack down a few years ago on the Sureños. Is this the re-establishment of the gang?
What do we do as a community? The police are only there to react to crimes after they happen. Do we need more injunctions? Job opportunities? GED opportunities? After school programs? Anti-violence rallies? What? How about a CeaseFire intervention?
And I also wish the Anarchists would put their energy to actually helping the community when we need it, not just smashing stuff when they wanna complain. Change requires positive energy too!
Hi, I live across the street from John O’Connell which ONCE was a premier tech. vocational school. Since it was re-located in the Mission, I found out that the school lost a lot of it’s program because of lack of appropriate space for the programs. What a shame. There are a lot of wonderful kids that go there, and I think it’d be wonderful to see more hands on, job training things going on there. Perhaps O’Connell can serve as a hub to better serve the teens in the neighborhood. It’s campus could look so much better.
How about issuing us law abiding citizens a CCW so we can protect ourselves when we find ourselves on the wrong block at the wrong time?
Because 82% of fire-arm deaths use a “legally purchased gun”. Regular law-abiding folk occasionally have a melt down. 1 in 4 people have a mental illness at some point in their life. It’s sad enough if they turn to booze – give them a gun, a dose of paranoia, and something as stupid as road-rage and all bets are off.
America needs more guns like the tea-party needs more racists.
So what, you can have a shoot out with a bunch of kids? Who, if you survive will retaliate against your family? More likely you’ll shoot an innocent bystander and be killed yourself.
Right on Michael!