Police shoot armed, mentally ill man in Mission District
By: Tamara Barak Aparton
Examiner Staff Writer
October 4, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — Police shot and wounded a 27-year-old man Sunday evening in the Mission District after failing to subdue him with pepper spray and a round from a non-lethal projectile weapon.
The unidentified man, who was armed with a knife, is expected to survive, police said Monday.
At 7:40 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to a call from the family of a mentally disturbed man breaking windows inside an apartment in the 500 block of 14th Street, near Guerrero Street.
When officers tried to speak to the man, he became hostile, police said. Officers sprayed him with pepper spray, which appeared to have no effect, police said. An officer then shot the man with an extended range impact weapon, which fires a less-than-lethal, sock-like projectile. When that also had no effect, one or more officers shot him in the lower extremities, police said.
The officers immediately began to render aid, both for the gun shot wounds and the man’s self-inflicted injuries. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital.
The shooting occurred three blocks away from a similar incident just over a year ago. In the Aug. 7, 2008 incident, police shot a 56-year-old mentally ill woman, Teresa Sheehan, six times in her 15th Street halfway house. Sheehan, who police believed threatened to kill her social worker, was shot in the torso, hip, face and arm by officers after allegedly lunging toward them with a knife.
The incident drew criticism from Sheehan’s family, because officers did not have a non-lethal beanbag gun ready for use. In December, Sheehan later acquitted of making criminal threats. The jury hung 11-1 in favor of finding her not guilty of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of assault on a peace officer, resulting in a mistrial.
