Family, community members hold vigil for man fatally shot by SFPD
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU/BCN) - Despite light rain, family members, friends and community members took to the streets of the Bayview District Thursday evening to remember the life of a 26-year-old San Francisco man who was fatally shot by police on
Wednesday.
With light police presence and with a helicopter hovering overhead, estimates of more than 200 people gathered at the intersection of Third Street and Fitzgerald Avenue beginning around 5:30 p.m. The mother of the deceased, Gwen, attended the vigil accompanied by other family members.
"He wasn't that monster that you're going to hear on the news," she said at the vigil. She said the San Francisco Police Department "needs to get some training" on how to handle people in distress and accused police of "executing" her son.
She also told a KTVU reporter that police didn't have to shoot and kill her son and that he was mentally ill.
"My child shouldn't have been shot 25 times and the cop jumped in front of him." She said her son was trying to cover to save his own life.
Mario Woods' mother said her son had received his driver's license, a high school diploma, and was about to start a job at UPS. He was released from prison last year after serving seven years for robbery.
Woods was shot Wednesday shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the area of Third and Keith streets, after an officer spotted someone holding a knife matching the description of a suspect in an earlier stabbing.
A number of officers responded and ordered Woods to drop the knife, using a less-lethal firearm known as a bean bag gun and pepper spray. Several videos have surfaced on social media showing the shooting from various angles. In one, Woods can be seen falling to the ground and then standing up and walking toward an officer, still holding the knife but not appearing to threaten police with it, before several officers open fire.
San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen attended this evening's vigil and offered her condolences to the family.
The vigil included a moment of silence as well as chants urging that police officers responsible for Woods death be held accountable.
In 2009, when Woods was 19, a San Francisco Superior Court judge added him and five other men to one of the city's civil gang injunctions targeting a Hunters Point criminal street gang known as the Oakdale Mob. But a family member said on Thursday that in the Bayview, "All you got to do is be hanging on the street to be slapped with a gang injunction," adding that Woods "was not a gang member" and didn't "deserve to be murdered in the street."
Protesters expressed a desire to "Heal the Hood," "Jail all racist killer cops" and "Fire Chief Suhr."
Shawn Richard, Executive Director of Brothers Against Guns, said the group was disappointed with the actions of the officers.
“Anything could have been done outside of that,” Richard said. “That’s unacceptable.”
Police Chief Greg Suhr said the officers did all they could before resorting to lethal force.
“It’s clear the officers did use all the methods, all the tools at their disposal, before it got to deadly force,” he said.
He acknowledged the outcome could have been different.
“I absolutely think a Taser would have made a difference here,” Suhr said. “If we have time to call for the bean bag gun or get the bean bag gun we’d also have time to deploy the Taser, but that’s a moot point. We don’t have Tasers.”
“The family wants justice,” Richard added. “They’re broken hearted and they’re distraught. They don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to think and they don’t know what to do.”
Many in the community don't accept the police explanation. Hundreds marched to a Bayview church for an impromptu town hall meeting. Chief Suhr said the department and community will hold an official town hall meeting Friday at 6 p.m. at 1800 Oakdale.