In a possible first, a suspect in the Outer Sunset today fired upon a San Francisco police drone โ and, later, at officers โ before police returned fire and sent him to the hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.
The incident may be the first instance of a San Francisco Police Department drone being fired upon. The department only began using drones last year. It is unclear whether the drone was hit.
At 4:32 p.m. on Saturday, officers had been called out to 41st Avenue between Lincoln Way and Irving Street, responding to a man armed with a gun who was โthreatening neighbors,โ according to the San Francisco Police Department.
It’s unclear how exactly the shooting occurred, but the department said the man fired his gun first. Officers “attempted to make contact with the armed subject,” the department wrote, and “during the encounter, the subject discharged his firearm, and an officer-involved shooting occurred.”
The man was “struck by gunfire,” the department wrote, and officers subsequently rendered aid before paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital. It is unclear how many officers took part in the shooting.
The incident is being investigated by the San Francisco district attorney’s office, the Investigative Services Detail of SFPD, and the Department of Police Accountability. SFPD will hold a town hall within 10 days of the shooting to present the circumstances that led to it.
Additional reporting by Joe Eskenazi.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. You may remain anonymous.
Who hasn’t wanted to take a shot at one of these annoyingly intrusive surveillance machines? Technically, you own the airspace directly above your land. But it looks like he was firing over the fence.
You don’t “actually own” anything in terms of real estate as it’s effectively an unlimited lease for as long as you pay whatever taxes they say you owe. But even if you could, there’s still Federal State and Local laws about shooting guns recklessly in places where it’s disallowed. Firing on officers is frowned upon too.
Extremely hilarious to call the drone dispatched to your backyard because you were waving guns at kids a โsurveillance machine.โ
Well the drone is a surveillance machine, I mean that’s what it’s doing there. Police owned, in this case, but that kind of blurs the line between sworn officers operating them and just anyone, does it not? Does the police drone have a badge, identify itself as a police drone, as officers would? No. Of course you can’t brandish a gun at kids, fire them off in your backyard or at officers, but the fact is the drone is a surveillance machine, but also a new facet of the intersection between technology, policing, law, and residential rights. There are going to be edge cases.
We never had these issues before the wealthy tech colonization and their puppet traitor Engardio.
San Francisco had a lot more violent crime and gun homicides before tech, are you crazy?
It was a person firing at a drone, then on responding officers. The drone part is new tech. That’s what they’re talking about obviously, and the Engardio dig was also a joke. Obviously. Or everyone’s crazy, you know except techies who think flying a random drone over a neighbor’s house is totes legit 24/7, right bro? :/
Not in the Sunset.
He’s firing at the wrong drones.