Daly City police release names of officers who fatally shot man with flat tire, BB gun
Roger Cornelius Allen was killed by Daly City police on April 7, 2021
DALY CITY, Calif. - Daly City police on Thursday released the names of the officers involved in the deadly shooting of a 44-year-old man after they approached him to help him with a flat tire.
The officers involved in the death of Roger Cornelius Allen are: Lt. Michael Brennan and officers Rosa Brenes, Nicholas McCarthy and Cameron Newton.
The department statement said the shooting occurred on April 7 in the 700 block of Niantic Avenue.
As police tell it, officers saw a parked truck on the road and they went to assist with a flat tire.
Officers said they spotted a gun, and then a "struggle ensued with Mr. Allen."
Allen pointed his weapon at an officer's face, the department said, and an officer fired his or her weapon, fatally striking Allen.
He later died at San Francisco General Hospital.
The gun was later determined to be a BB gun.
The Daly City police department statement said the shooting occurred on April 7 in the 700 block of Niantic Avenue.
In an earlier interview, San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told the San Francisco Chronicle that an officer patrolling the neighborhood saw a truck with a "fairly severely damaged tire."
When Allen got out to speak with the officer, three more officers showed up to the scene. There was also a woman in the back seat.
Two officers who were on the passenger side of the truck noticed what appeared to be a "Ruger-like" handgun in Allen’s lap.
"They yelled out as always law enforcement do, ‘Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun!’" Wagstaffe told the Chronicle. "Mr. Allen picked the gun up — it is described to us — and held it in his hand."
Wagstaffe said a "sort of back-and-forth struggle" ensued between the officer and Allen, and at some point, the tip of the gun pointed in the direction of the first officer.
Wagstaffe told the Chronicle Allen was "silent ... from beginning to end" and didn’t "utter a word to the officers" and neither did the passenger in the back seat.
At a vigil earlier this month, Allen's sister said: "We need to know the truth and we need justice. Too many Black brother and sisters dying behind cops. It's not fair, regardless of what color they are, it's not fair."
Daly City police do not have body-worn cameras so there is no video of this shooting.