On an unseasonably warm Friday morning, multiple bullets were fired into the back window of a white sedan parked near Potrero Terrace and Annex, one of the last public-housing complexes in San Francisco.
Police said one victim — whom friends and a police source identified as Cornelius Wigfall, Jr., 44, known familiarly as “Saga” — was killed instantly. An unidentified woman who was also in the car was critically injured, though she is expected to recover from her gunshot wounds, Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the area, told Mission Local.
A 12-year-old boy was also wounded in the attack, though he was not shot, police wrote in a statement.
San Francisco had a record-low total of 28 homicides in 2025, the lowest number the city has recorded in 70 years. But 2026 has gotten off to a rough start: Entering the third month of the year, there have been eight homicides citywide, according to police data, compared to just one homicide at this time last year.
Soon after the Feb. 27 shooting, commenters flooded social media mourning the death of Wigfall, whose identity was confirmed by a police department source, though his name has not yet been publicly shared or released by the medical examiner’s office.
A close friend of Wigfall said that he left behind four children, and was also a grandfather.
“He was a wonderful father, wonderful husband, a wonderful friend,” said the friend, who went by “T.” “He deeply wanted to get out of his environment and do better for himself.”
Wigfall had been arrested in 2020 and booked for “street terrorism,” a term referring to violent, coordinated crimes often conducted by gangs. He was arrested more than a dozen times in multiple California counties throughout the last decade for robbery, grand theft and possession of a controlled substance.
Monty Bo became close with Wigfall at San Quentin prison, where they were both incarcerated in the mid-2000s. Wigfall’s father, he said, was also in prison at the time. “He was funny, strong-willed and, if afforded the opportunity, he wanted to be better,” said Bo of Cornelius Jr.
Wigfall is a native of Potrero Hill, though a city official noted that, at the time of his death, he did not live at the housing complex, nor in San Francisco. He was likely visiting family on Friday morning. Commenters and friends who posted on Instagram described Wigfall as a “Potrero Legend.”
There has been a significant drop in gun-related violence in District 10 in the past several years. According to a study released by the police commission in 2021, the vast majority of gun-related incidents in San Francisco since 2018 were conducted by roughly a dozen small “groups.”
In District 10, these groups are often isolated to the district’s remaining public-housing complexes.
Over the past decade, District 10’s public-housing complexes have been rebuilt as part of HOPE SF’s revitalization program, which aimed to modernize and privatize the neighborhood’s projects, many of which were dilapidated former Navy barrack housing.
Many former residents have since moved to other neighboring, more affordable Bay Area cities, including Antioch and Vallejo.
The displacement of families from the city and the gentrification of District 10 has contributed to a significant decline in violence at the district’s housing projects, according to violence intervention team staff.
If the shooting is determined to be gang-related, the city’s Community Violence Reduction Team (formerly known as the Gang Task Force) will spend the next several days attempting to prevent retaliatory violence, which is a high risk after a gang-related attack.
Walton noted that he is also leveraging the District 10 Safety Plan; a program, contracted with city agencies and nonprofits, that provides mental health and trauma support for family members and surviving victims, and deploys outreach teams to local “hot zones,” where violence might break out.
“At this point,” said Walton. “We’re just trying to make sure there’s no retaliation … We’re working with our partners to make sure they’re having conversations with young people.”
Monty Bo, who spoke to Mission Local through Instagram, noted that he hasn’t returned to San Francisco since he left the city in 2021. “I ain’t looked back,” he wrote. “All I see is my folks who was still in it get took out.”
“the gentrification of District 10 has contributed to a significant decline in violence at the district’s housing projects, according to violence intervention team staff”.
But some progressives still believe that gentrification is a bad thing and oppose it.
What was the evidence that this guy was trying to put behind an illustrious career of crime? My suggestion for these people would be to move to someplace where you aren’t entrenched in gang rivalries and never look back.
Hi Marina,
If you are going to bring up a person’s criminal history, please then do your due diligence to review and cover what empirical research shows. Some of these research topics to consider is systemic racism and its horrible consequential effects on African American men that have occurred since enslavement. Other research to review and at least bring up as part of the multi-layered systemic racism is the effects of living in public housing or housing projects, redlining, jail pipeline systems. Please be careful to not push the agenda of victim shaming and dehumanization that is used to normalize the ongoing murders of members of our Black communities.
Sounds like we should get rid of the projects since they are so bad.
“Some of these research topics to consider is systemic racism and its horrible consequential effects on African American men that have occurred since enslavement.”
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While this is true at the population level, it does not excuse, justify, not even explain it at the individual level. He no doubt went to a poorly funded school because of systemic racism, but he didn’t commit crime because of system racism. He could have just worked a minimum wage job and lived peacefully instead of violently.
While at it, include research that shows most of these empirical studies are nonsense with extremely poor design and low power. Sociology fantasy masquerading as science.