The letter expresses hopelessness and asks involved officers not to blame themselves.
It ends: "Please, take solace in knowing that the situation was out of your control. You had no other choice."
Suhr plans to host a town hall meeting on the incident tomorrow at 6 p.m. It will be at the Corner Stone Church at 3459 17th Street in San Francisco.
Original Post:
San Francisco police say they'll hold a town hall meeting to discuss a Sunday evening incident in which officers shot and killed a man outside the department's Mission District station -- reportedly after the man brandished a pistol that turned out to be a BB gun.
Police Officer Albie Esparza, an SFPD spokesman, said early Monday that the department will hold a community meeting on the shooting, which took place about 5:20 p.m. Sunday near 17th and Valencia streets. Details of a time and place for the meeting are still being worked out, Esparza said.
Here's how Police Chief Greg Suhr describes the incident, per the San Francisco Chronicle:
Suhr said the man had ventured into the parking lot of the police station, which is clearly marked as restricted to the public though the gate is kept open so police vehicles can easily enter and exit.
It is not uncommon for the public to enter the area, Suhr said, so three officers told the man to leave and got into their patrol car. But the suspect did not leave.
“They found this curious, approached him and told him again he can’t be there,” 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.”
The gun was later found to be an airsoft or BB gun. The man was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died Sunday evening.
The man was not identified, but Suhr said he had approached officers earlier in the day on 16th Street and queried them about what kind of weapons they carry.
Suhr contradicted one witness report that officers had exchanged fire with the man. That report came by way of neighborhood news site Mission Local, which published an account from a former editor, Hadley Robinson:
Robinson ... said she was 10 feet away on Valencia near the police station at around 5:25 p.m. when she heard police saying, “back up or put your hands up,” to a man who was in the parking lot with some officers.
Robinson said she was unconcerned and did not think the man had a gun. Then, he backed up into Valencia Street, pulled out a gun and opened fire at the officers in the lot. “There were a bunch of rounds between him and the police and somehow they (the police) got him down,” she said. “He was not dead, but they had him on the ground,” she said.
More than a dozen police quickly emerged onto the streets, closing off Valencia at 17th Street and clearing the streets. The station is between 17th and 18th Streets on the West side of Valencia.
“I don’t know what the guy was doing in the parking lot in the first place,” Robinson said.
Robinson said the guy was “kind of older, thin and with greying hair.”
