Man hit with hail of gunfire after raising what appears to be pistol toward officers
Update, July 27: The man shot dead by San Francisco police was identified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Thursday morning. He was city resident Ryant Bluford, 41.
Police have confirmed that a man shot in a Bayview standoff with officers has died of his wounds.
The shooting occurred at the intersection of Catalina Street and Fairfax Avenue at around 2:53 p.m., and was caught on video posted on Twitter by @campaignrallo. A Black man with a knit cap can be seen standing in the middle of the street while a trio of officers are in defensive positions behind their vehicle with guns drawn at about 10 to 15 yards away.
The man shouts and gesticulates at the officers, at one point extending his middle finger. It is a chaotic scene, with bystanders’ frantic screams caught up on the microphone of the camera recording the goings on.
Thirty seconds into the video, bystanders shout, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot him!” But, almost immediately thereafter, the man raises what appears to be a pistol toward the officers and is instantaneously cut down in a barrage of police gunfire. At least eight shots were fired.
Ironwood Way
W Point Rd
At around 2:53 p.m., a man was shot at the intersection of Catalina and Fairfax after apparently pointing a pistol at officers.
A trio of officers stood behind the doors of their police crusier. They opened fire when the man appeared to brandish a gun.
Catalina St
Fairfax Ave
The Catalina and Fairfax intersection, where a man was killed by SFPD officers after appearing to brandish a gun. Graphic by Will Jarrett, basemap from Google Earth.
In a press release, the San Francisco Police Department said that the incident that led to the lethal shooting started when police detained a man. Mission Local is told that the officers were part of the SFPD Community Violence Reduction Team — formerly known as the Gang Task Force.
SMH SFPD pic.twitter.com/vyMKMrsPga
— SK2 (@campaignralo) July 26, 2023
Another man who was apparently armed “engaged the officers” during this incident, according to the SFPD press release. A police source tells us this led the officers on-scene to “call a 10-25” — a call for backup; at least seven police vehicles were seen zipping down Mission Street at high speed at this time. Numerous officers responded prior to the standoff and shooting.
CPR was purportedly performed on the man, but the police have confirmed he did not survive.
This is the third fatal police shooting so far this year. Marc Child was shot and killed last month in his parents’ home in the Outer Richmond. Sergio Barrios was killed in an apartment complex in Glen Park in May.
Police have said they will announce the time and date of a forthcoming town hall meeting in the next couple of days.
Crime is trauma and the county offers different services, which can be found here. Victims of violent crime can also contact the Trauma Recovery Center at UCSF.
JOE ESKENAZI
Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.
“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.
He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.
The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.
