Sparks Fly at SFPD Town Hall Meeting about Officer Involved Shooting

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) — Members of the public called for the resignation of San Francisco

police Chief Greg Suhr Monday evening during a town hall meeting he hosted to

discuss an officer-involved shooting, which ended with the death of a

24-year-old woman who was driving erratically in a stolen car last Tuesday.

At the town hall meeting Suhr discussed the events that allegedly

led up to plainclothes police officers fatally shooting San Francisco

resident Alice Brown after she allegedly went on a driving rampage at the

intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Pine Street last Tuesday night while

allegedly trying to escape pursuing officers.

Members of the community who attended the meeting held banners

commemorating the lives of those who have died in officer-involved shootings.

A number of people said Suhr can’t handle the job and should retire or

resign.

Suhr asked the public to keep the conversation and all questions

on the subject of last Tuesday’s fatal shooting.

He said the two plainclothes officers who shot and killed Brown

were Sgt. Thomas McGuire and Officer Michael Tursi.

Suhr said the two officers responded in an unmarked Ford Crown

Victoria at 7:07 p.m. last Tuesday to the intersection to investigate a

possible stolen vehicle.

Members of the public urged the police chief to explain why the

San Francisco Police Department decided to send two officers in civilian

clothing without a marked patrol car to the scene to investigate.

Suhr and members of the Police Department’s media relations unit

said that it is not against police policy to send plainclothes officers out

to investigate such crimes.

Attendees at the town hall meeting, some of whom had lost loved

ones in other officer-involved shootings, argued that sending officers

without uniforms and without marked patrol cars causes confusion and can lead

to an escalated situation.

According to Suhr, officers located the suspect vehicle, a blue

four-door Volkswagen sedan, at a Chevron gas station.

Suhr said the car was stolen from the car rental agency Zipcar and

that police later discovered the car’s original license plates were inside

the car and another set of license plates were mounted on the car’s exterior.

The officers approached the vehicle on foot and identified

themselves to the driver, according to Suhr.

Brown put the car in gear and drove toward the officers, then

tried to drive away from the gas station, hit a building and turned onto Pine

Street, where she turned around and started driving the wrong way down the

street, police said.

Officers allegedly chased after the car on foot but Brown drove

onto a sidewalk, then drove toward the officers for a second time and hit

another building and several parked vehicles, police said.

Brown again entered the roadway going the wrong way, hit more

vehicles and forced a motorcyclist to abandon his vehicle on the roadway to

avoid being hit, police said.

Police said Brown drove back onto the sidewalk and that the

officers then fired at least two shots at the car from their

department-issued firearms.

The car ended up on the sidewalk of Pine Street about 50 feet west

of Van Ness Avenue.

The officers gave aid to Brown, but she died at the scene, police

said.

Police said the officers fired at the woman because she was

endangering the lives of the officers and nearby pedestrians.

Officials have not yet said whether drugs or alcohol were factors

in the incident.

Brown also had two felony warrants for her arrest at the time of

her death, Suhr said.

At least two eyewitnesses at the scene during the officer-involved

shooting were at the meeting today and commented on police actions during the

incident.

Eyewitness Tammi Abney, told Suhr, “What you said was not true.”

She said she had just bought gas at the Chevron station when the

incident began. She said she heard one shot then after a short gap, four more

shots.

Abney asked police why they had to pursue Brown and why they

couldn’t have let her go. She said officers escalated the situation.

Another eyewitness, Michele Herzberg-Moran, who said she was in

one of the cars that Brown struck at the intersection, said as far as she can

tell everything the chief said this evening appears accurate and truthful.

However, Herzberg-Moran said she had a feeling that the men in

civilian clothes were officers, but had no way to know for sure.

“I never saw the badges,” Herzberg-Moran said.

She said that Brown was trying to get through gridlocked traffic

by ramming cars.

“The car was being used as a weapon and it was scary,” she said.

Brown’s family also attended the community meeting and while they

did not make comments, DeWitt Lacy, an attorney at the law offices of John L.

Burris, said his office is conducting an investigation into the police

officers’ use of force and if necessary, will file a lawsuit against the

officers and the city.

“We want answers just like many folks,” Lacy said following the

meeting.

Angela Naggie, the mother of Oshaine Evans, who was killed by

undercover police officers near AT&T Park following a San Francisco Giants

game last year, said Brown’s case is very similar to her son’s case.

She said officers in civilian clothing approached her son while he

was in a car before fatally shooting him.

Suhr said the officer-involved shooting remains under

investigation by the Police Department’s homicide detail and its internal

affairs division, as well as the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and

the Office of Citizen Complaints.

Some members of the public at the meeting expressed their concern

that because the investigations are led by city government employees, they

cannot be truly independent.

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