Aurah asks, via our Contact Us page:
Any ideas of what happened [Saturday] night at 14th and Guerrero? I could see the police but not the actual guy they were screaming at, “Put down the knife! etc.” Then it sounded like maybe they shot him with that beanbag gun and then a couple real gunshots.
Read on. What happened anyway? I’d call SFPD but I’m still sort of busy with SXSW.
Photo by Rob Maguire.
I heard the shots too, but the man with the knife didn’t appear to be actually shot since he continued to walk slowly up the street with about 5 or 6 cops surrounding him with their guns drawn. They walked nearly all the way up to the Clinton Park alley when approx. 20 cop cars pulled up and it was all over. I was surprised as well to find no information about the incident the next day, but I guess that is the city we live in. It isn’t the first time I have seen something like this outside my bedroom window. Still, it was a slightly surreal scene.
Captain Corrales commented on the incident tonight at the Police Community meeting. The following is my recollection of Corrales’ account:
There was a disturbed man wandering around the area with a knife. Police shot him with some unspecified less-than-lethal weapon, to no effect, and then pepper-sprayed him, also to no effect. They finally restrained him by brute force, resulting in unspecified injuries to three officers.
Apparently, when the man was identified it turned out that both he and his father had missing-persons reports on them. Oakland PD searched an address associated with the two and found that his father had been murdered, probably by the son.