Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Year's Violence: 1 shot dead, 2 stabbed, 39 arrested, and two other shootings reported

S.F. tallies year’s first slaying
Jan 2, 2008 3:00 AM (13 hrs ago) by Brent Begin, The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - San Francisco police are investigating the first killing of 2008, an early morning shooting Tuesday in the South of Market neighborhood.

Police said the unidentified victim, a man in his late 20s, was walking on Ninth Street near the intersection of Folsom Street just before 5 a.m. when he was shot in the face. Medical personnel pronounced the man dead when they arrived.

Police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens said there was little information available regarding the homicide.

“Unfortunately, investigators now have to look into the first homicide of the year,” he said.
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According to police operations, there were no witnesses in the area and police have no vehicle or suspect information. The homicide occurred about a block away from a popular cluster of nightclubs with early-morning hours.

The homicide tally for 2007 also began with a New Year’s Day killing and ended in December with 98 homicides — the highest number since 1995, when The City recorded 104 slayings.

For SoMa residents, a slaying in the middle of the neighborhood could mean a growing trend of deadly violence will only continue into the new year. The Southern police station, which covers SoMa, recorded nine homicides in 2007 — triple the number of killings in that district in 2006.

On Tuesday, police were also investigating two New Year’s stabbings that occurred at about 2 a.m. near Washington Square in North Beach.

Police also responded to a daylight shooting in the area of McAllister and Fillmore streets. Witnesses called police about 10 a.m. and said the occupants of two white cars were driving around and shooting at each other. Police were unable to locate any suspects or vehicles, and police said they believe nobody was hurt in the shooting.

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Also, according to a commenter, there was a shooting at 24th and Utah, and according to the Chronicle, 2 people were arrested after a fight on the Embarcadero, 2 people were arrested for gun possession, 8 were arrested on warrants, and 27 others were arrested for being drunk in public.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There were shots fired at a vehicle on the corner of Utah and 24th in the early morning hours of New Year's Day. Police responded within less than a minute. Do you have any info on that?

Anonymous said...

Great start. Thanks for continuing this honest and much needed blog into 08. Hopefully it is a slower year for you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for doing this. You provide information that the Chronicle and other media entities will at times cover up.

Anonymous said...

my friend was also stabbed in the neck in the sunset district early sunday morning. 10 stitches in the neck and the suspect fled yet to be apprehended.

Anonymous said...

Rah, do most jurisdictions count "justifiable homicides" in their homicide counts? I know that the five killings by Oakland Police are counted in the 127 homicides for 2007. Why does San Francisco get to deduct their justifiable homicides from the ongoing homicide count? Does Richmond deduct their justifiable homicides from their ongoing count? How does San Jose count their homicides? How do most cities in the United States count their homicides. Shouldn't all jurisdiction have the same method? How can anyone compare homicide rates fairly if one city is deducting their justifiable homicides and others are not? I think you should keep the justifiable homicides in your count. That's the only way to compare homicide rates in the Bay Area. What San Francisco does should be illegal. Also, the San Francisco Chronicle, will on occasion, put up bar charts comparing yearly homicides between Oakland and San Francisco while never disclosing the discrepancies in the methodology in compiling these figures. What do you think, Rah?

SF Crime said...

Navigator, I'm not sure what different jurisdictions do when tallying their homicides, but I do know that the FBI subtracts justifiable homicides from the total when it comes down to the final count. With that in mind, and also just out of a desire to make the information on the website easy to take in, I decided to keep justifiable homicides separate from the "normal" ones...if that makes sense. Same goes for the "suspicious" deaths. There were a couple (Hugues De La Plaza and John Daniel Schirra) where news accounts were conflicting on what their deaths were considered as, and personally they seem a little suspicious as well. So I kept them in the homicide list, but with an asterisk and explanation along with them, seeing as the SFPD didn't officially count them.