A man riding a scooter was killed Monday in SoMa while fleeing from San Francisco police officers along Mission Street and subsequently hitting his head on the metal pole of a bus shelter, according to the police department and six witnesses.
Three witnesses described a man, potentially an undercover officer, cutting off the fleeing suspect’s scooter with a grey sedan, exiting his car and then tackling the suspect, whose head struck the metal pole of a Muni shelter at Eighth and Mission streets. One of the witnesses called it a “football tackle.”
The suspect then lay bleeding on the ground while officers tried to help him, the witnesses said, and was taken to the hospital.
The police department said that officers had spotted a man they say was wanted on a warrant near Mission and Eighth streets at about 11:24 a.m.. When officers tried to arrest him, the San Francisco Police Department reported that he fled on the scooter and “collided with a street fixture.”
Officers gave him aid and paramedics took him to a hospital, the department said, where he was pronounced dead.
Police have not released the man’s name or said what he was wanted for. An SFPD spokesperson did not say whether the grey car was an unmarked police vehicle or comment on the witness’ accounts, and would not comment further on an open and ongoing investigation.
Bystanders said the gray sedan had chased the scooter down Mission Street before cutting across its path. They said the man on the scooter went against the flow of traffic before he was blocked by the vehicle.
It was then that the suspect was tackled by a man who emerged from that vehicle, witnesses said, and struck the metal pole.
By early afternoon, police had taped off Mission between Seventh and Eighth streets. An hour after the incident, officers were still on scene photographing the area and marking the pavement with chalk. A white van from the medical examiner’s office was on site.
An email to the medical examiner has not yet been returned.
This is a developing story and will be updated with new information
