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.
Guess ML should Sunshine the Flock footage in the area before it mysteriously runs into a delete button
Are they letting unmarked cars engage in pursuits now? That’s long been against policy, and for very good reason.
Out in the street, they call it murder.
In the real world, it’s called evading arrest. Any unfortunate outcome is the fault of the criminal evading arrest
Greg, you’re welcome to do what your fellow commenter has been unable to do: please show us which statute(s) authorize the police to kill you for resisting arrest.
Huh.
This sounds like a murder.
It is a murder. One that apparently some people think is justified.
Second excessive force SFPD story this week. If we are hearing about them imagine what we aren’t hearing about. The daily casual cruelty.
We deserve to know the name of this killer cop.
Campers,
I risk my life every day doing a good job cleaning up my neighborhood and my dog (Skippy) and I work lots around the ‘bike’ lane on Valencia from 14th Street up to Duboce and actual bicycles are rare and the scooters are the most deadly thing out there and anything with any kind of motor on it allowed to move on SF streets and never sidewalks should have a license plate on it front and back so there.
go Niners !!
That was the best SF defensive performance since Charles Haley was their version of today’s Greenwood and I heard Haley got traded to Dallas cause he pissed on a new arrivals car and was wild in the locker room and did you see that hit he blindsided at practice on Chrisian McCaffery before the season even started and Christian bounced up and came after him and others intervened and yeah, that’s Charles Haley type action which seems to actually help.
Don’t flee the police.
Matt, please show us which statute(s) give the police the legal right to kill someone for fleeing.
PC 835a
The death appeared accidental. We don’t know the totality of the circumstances.
The death appeared accidental to whom?
Those with common sense perhaps?
Huh. Ben is awfully quiet.