The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office has identified the two victims killed in separate shootings in Bayview-Hunters Point just days apart this month.
The office identified the victims as 20-year-old Phillip Leo Jones IV, who was shot and killed on Oct. 4 in a residential area in Hunters Point, and 44-year-old Jose Juan Ramirez-Sanchez, who was killed on Oct. 1.
Jones was shot and killed in broad daylight at 12:42 p.m. near an apartment complex in Reuel Court. Three days earlier, Ramirez-Sanchez died after being shot on Thomas Avenue near the Yosemite Slough waterfront at 5:11 p.m.
Though two male suspects have been named in the killing of Ramirez-Sanchez, no arrests have yet been made. Both shootings are being treated as homicides.
At the San Francisco Police Department’s Bayview Station monthly community meeting on Tuesday, station captain Bernadette Robinson said that the shootings are being treated as isolated and independent crimes, and likely occurred as a result of fights that turned violent.
“They were just two people who had been fighting, and one person didn’t make it,” said Robinson. “There should be no public concern.”
Robinson added that, outside of the recent shootings, crime remains at a historic ebb.
The back-to-back shootings have shocked the southeastern neighborhood, however. In the past two years, gun violence in Bayview-Hunters Point has dropped to an all-time low after decades in which the neighborhood held one of the highest rates of homicide in San Francisco.
Theo Ellington, a candidate for supervisor in the neighborhood and director of the Ruth Williams Opera House, said that, just days earlier, a non-fatal shooting occurred outside the opera house, startling him and his staff.
“The recent gun violence in Bayview is unacceptable,” Ellington wrote in a post on Instagram. During a recent forum, Ellington, who grew up in the neighborhood, noted that he lost his cousin to gun violence at age 13. “In a matter of days, our community has experienced multiple shootings and lost two lives … We are all affected by this.”
Ramirez-Sanchez’s brother-in-law, who asked to not be named, described him as “a loving husband, father, brother, and cherished member of our family.”
Ramirez-Sanchez is survived by his wife and two daughters. His brother-in-law said they are not only heartbroken, but no longer feel safe in their own home.
“His wife and two daughters are now facing the unimaginable pain of losing him while trying to navigate life without him,” he wrote. “They are grieving while also living with fear and uncertainty.”
A fundraiser, posted on Oct. 2, has raised $7,566 in donations so far, with a fundraising goal of $12,000 for funeral and “unexpected” expenses.
Jones’ friends and family also took to social media in the days following his killing. They said he went by the nickname “Pop,” and commenters posted broken hearts and prayer emojis. One user recalled hearing the sounds of gunshots from an adjacent street that night.
“I’m so so sorry pop,” wrote another, “Love u.”
Contributing reporting from Bailey Zitko.
Sad. From 1983 to 1993, I was the Bible study teacher and counselor in the maximum-security unit of the San Francisco juvenile hall. Too many of the young men who came up to the hall on murder charges were from the Bay View Hunters Point. I learned a lot from these teens. The one statement I heard the most while counseling at the facility: “I never thought of it that way” these young men would say to me. That said, I proposed to two current members of the Board of Supervisors something that would give people something to think about: San Francisco should pass a law banning the film industry from filming gun scenes within the City and County of San Francisco. Its not going to stop gun violence but it will give the film industry something to think about. Of course I only heard crickets. One supervisor told me it might be against the Second Amendment. That is rediculous.