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San Francisco police fatally shoot man carrying airsoft pistol

San Francisco police opened fire Sunday evening after the man pulled what was later determined to be a type of air gun. The man was hit three times and died of his wounds. 

  • By Staff Associated Press

| San Francisco

Authorities say officers shot and killed a white man near a San Francisco police station who held what appeared to be a handgun.

Police spokesman Albie Esparza says police opened fire Sunday evening after the man pulled what was later determined to be a type of air gun.

He says the 32-year-old man, who was not further identified, was hit three times and died of his wounds. The officers were uninjured.

The shooting occurred after three officers noticed a man hanging around the parking lot of the Mission District police station, and Esparza says when they walked toward him he pulled up his shirt and produced what they thought was a deadly weapon.

“They found this curious, approached him and told him again he can’t be there,” San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said. “He went to his waistband, where there was the butt of a gun, and drew a weapon. Two sergeants fired and hit him three times.”

Esparza says that earlier in the day the same man had asked some officers about their guns and ammunition.

Chief Suhr said that, like police stations across the nation in the aftermath of police-involved deaths in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City, San Francisco police have a heightened concern for officer safety.

“This is a job where very sadly we lose officers,” Suhr said, reported the San Francisco Chronicle. “It's on all our minds. But we’ve got a job to do, so we’re going to do it.”

In Cleveland, the mayor says he didn't trust a state agency to investigate the fatal police shooting of a 12-year-old boy who was carrying a pellet gun because he believes the agency mishandled a different shooting investigation that led to charges against officers.

The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports Mayor Frank Jackson explained Sunday how his thinking on the Tamir Rice case was influenced by the review of a November 2012 chase and shooting that ended with the deaths of two unarmed suspects.

Jackson says he asked the Cuyahoga County sheriff to investigate Tamir's death because he wasn't confident a transparent investigation with due process would be conducted by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Ohio's attorney general.

Messages seeking comment were left early Monday for the attorney general's office.

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