Mission Street this afternoon saw a man brandishing a knife at 17th Street and a crowd of people claiming items being cleaned out of the burned-out Big House store on 22nd street.
Man armed with knife
Around 2 p.m., a reader reported a man wielding a knife walking down 17th Street near Capp. He had allegedly stolen the knife from Thrift Town on 17th and Mission. Employees at the store seemed familiar with the incident but said they could not comment, though a manager insisted the man had never been inside the store at all.
Zak McCune, who works at the motorcycle shop on 17th and Capp, said he remembered a disturbance somewhere near the intersection of 17th and Mission.
“He was screaming like crazy,” McCune recalled, and added that several cars had gotten stuck in the intersection as a result of the commotion.
Dave Hubner, sitting outside a studio on Capp Street by 17th, hadn’t noticed anything but was unimpressed by the story.
“Just a knife?” he asked. Hubner said he has been threatened with knives, had the studio door broken open, and has interrupted a man carving the building’s wires off the walls, so a man with a knife in the area was not unusual.
Others in the area said police and first responders had taken care of the situation by around 2:30 p.m. A police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Free-for-all at Big House
Farther south, in front of the former retailer Big House Inc., which fell prey to a five-alarm fire in early September, a crowd had gathered to see what they could salvage from the rubble. Smoke and water-stained goods were being loaded onto a large truck for disposal, but not before thrifty neighbors dug through some of the bags to see if they could unearth any treasures.
The men loading the truck helped sift through it all, handing down any interesting finds to those standing in line on the sidewalk, who thus received stacks of plates, damaged toys, blankets, towels and other goods.
Ricardo Villareal, who had arrived at 7 a.m. to help take out the trash that filled the truck, rescued two speakers that had been submerged in water. He hopes to be able to fix them and install them in his car. “I hope I can get the water out and see if they work. They are $120 each new,” he said.
This has been your Afternoon Report—a new series we’re trying out in which we offer a quickie post-meridian rundown of some minor developments in the always-happening streets of the Mission District. Got ideas or suggestions? Let us know what you think by sending an email to info@missionlocal.com.
Actually not at Big House but at the place next door, a similar business. The stuff in Big House burned or melted; the goods being recouped from next door only suffered smoke damage. This jamboree has been going on intermittently since at least Saturday, when people climbed into a large dumpster and handed things down to others gathered around.