San Francisco police shooting sparks community outrage

NBC BAY AREA - Two uniformed officers were conducting a fare inspection on Saturday afternoon when a routine check went south...

Two uniformed officers were conducting a fare inspection on Saturday afternoon in the Bayview District of San Francisco when a routine check went south. The officers attempted to detain a man on the light rail, but he fled, and was ultimately shot in the back and killed.

Investigators say that the police acted in self defense, and that the man shot at the police as he ran away. NBC Bay Area reports that an amateur video shows a gun with a silver barrel and black handle lying on 3rd street not far from where the nineteen year old was shot.

Community members are not so sure this is the case. Activist Misha Izari, whose son was shot and killed by Bayview police officers in 2001, says that cell phone video shot at the scene shows the man running away with his hands in the air, and that the gun found could not have been his.

She says that this is an example of a growing problem with SFPD. She listed other examples, including the Bart police shooting, as support for her claim that this is no isolated incident. As for punishment for the officers, Izari thinks they should be “suspended without pay.”

“Police officers are supposed to be trained so that they can defend themselves without killing somebody, without being the judge, jury, and executioner,” says another concerned member of the community.

An angry crowd gathered in the mission district overnight to protest the shooting, chanting ‘Cops, Pigs, Murderers’ as they flowed out of the Bayview neighborhood. The man shot on Saturday has not been identified by authorities. They say he might have been a person of interest in another shooting wherein a pregnant woman was killed. Community members still say that even if this sit the case, he did not deserve to be murdered without fair trial.

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