A defendant in custody attempted to flee the San Francisco Superior Court’s Hall of Justice Friday morning and was detained by deputies who chased him into the courthouse hallway.
Banging was heard in the hallway outside Department 11, where the defendant’s hearing was scheduled, before the heavy courtroom double doors flew open. A screaming man in an orange sweatsuit ran out, “with a deputy holding on for dear life,” one witness said.
Other deputies came running, and uniformed San Francisco Police officers sitting on a bench in the hallway jumped up and joined the scuffle. Law enforcement grabbed the defendant as he continued to scream and fight, the witness continued: “It was a good wrestling match.”
Another officer went inside the courtroom to make sure that no one had been harmed.
The defendant was brought to the ground and handcuffed. He was taken back to jail, and Department 11, where preliminary hearings are typically held, was closed for the morning.
Before he jumped up and ran, the defendant was sobbing, begging to go home, and talking about wanting to see his mother, a witness in the courtroom said: “I saw a very young man having an emotional crisis.”
The defendant, another witness was told, was supposedly also upset because one of his two attorneys did not appear in court.
The incident is under investigation, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department said.
This story was updated on Sep. 8 with details provided after publication.
Payback will be the “safety cell’ the author here mentioned yesterday.
Lol