San Francisco police assigned to a team that conducts encampment sweeps shot an armed man they spotted Friday morning while working on a citywide homeless operation.
Uniformed officers with the San Francisco Police Department’s Healthy Streets Operation Center were at Jessie and Sixth streets when officials say they spotted a man with a gun inside a car shortly after 10 a.m.
When police approached the car, the man with the gun made a run for it, dipping into a nearby store and then out again in a chase that led officers into the Powell Street BART station, according to SFPD.
The chase culminated with police shooting the man.
“Officers attempted to make contact with the suspect,” the department wrote in a press release hours later. “During the encounter, an officer-involved shooting occurred. The armed male suspect was struck by gunfire.”
Police rendered aid as paramedics rushed to the scene.
The man was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Police took his gun as evidence.
SFPD will hold a town hall on the shooting, as it does within 10 days every time a cop fires a service weapon.
The Healthy Streets team, known as HSOC, has played a central role in the city’s recent crackdown on sidewalk encampments.
HSOC was formed in 2018 to respond to complaints about encampments from 911 and its non-emergency counterpart 311 with police leading a response with help from the departments of Public Works, Public Health and Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The Coalition on Homelessness — which is suing San Francisco over the way it treats unhoused residents — has criticized HSOC as an example of the city trying to police its way out of a problem without addressing the underlying issue.