A man was arrested by San Francisco police officers a little after 4:20 p.m. after an hours-long standoff in which he sat barricaded in a car and surrounded by police officers on McCoppin Street, at the northern edge of the Mission.
The man, allegedly wielding a knife and brass knuckles, approached a group of three people sitting double-parked in a car, according to a witness.
The witness, who lives on the McCoppin but declined to be identified, said the three people were in the car waiting for him when the man approached them with a knife.
As the witness came out of his apartment, he saw the man standing with the knife pointed towards the front wheel on the driver’s side of the car, seemingly preparing to slash the tire. The knife-wielding man told the witness to “Go home” and indicated the witness’ apartment.
The witness then entered the car, drove off with the other three people, and called the police, who arrived some 15 minutes later. By that point, the man had locked himself into a nearby car and was refusing to leave.
The police department, in a statement, said that officers had been deployed to the block “regarding a person with a knife threatening people” at around 12:36 p.m.
McCoppin Street was blocked between Valencia and Otis for hours today, with around a dozen police and fire department vehicles on the scene. Officers were set up on the roads in all directions, and even a small parking enforcement vehicle was deployed.
Police officers and SWAT team members spent hours attempting to coax the man from the car using a loudspeaker. The man opened and closed the driver’s seat window and door several times, but refused to come out of the vehicle.
As the police worked, a group of up to fifteen onlookers slowly gathered, many of whom were residents of the buildings whose entrances were blocked by the police.
At around 4:20 p.m., officers took the man into custody and handcuffed him to a gurney, putting a mesh bag over his face. The bag is called a spit hood, which a police source described as “for biters and spitters.”
It is unclear how the officers took the suspect into custody, but the car in which he had barricaded himself had its back windows shattered after the man’s arrest. Several loud banging noises and some smoke was seen coming from the area near the car shortly before the arrest.
