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SF Muni bus shooter pleads not guilty in ‘execution-style murder’

Ilasa Faalogoifo plead not guilty to all charges in San Francisco Superior Court, housed at the Hall of Justice on 850 Bryant St., on Dec. 12, 2022 | Garrett Leahy/The Standard

A man accused of killing a San Francisco Muni passenger and wounding another in August pleaded not guilty Monday to murder and several other felony counts. 

Ilasa Faalogoifo also stands accused of assault with a deadly weapon and other weapons charges in an attack that prosecutors described as “an execution-style murder.”

He faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted. 

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Brian Ferrall, who presided over Faalogoifo’s arraignment Monday, did not set a trial date.

Faalogoifo has been jailed since his Nov. 18 arrest.

In making their case to keep him locked up without bail, prosecutors cast Faalogoifo as a threat to the public, pointing to surveillance footage of him killing one person and then going back to shoot more victims.

The shooting took place on at around 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 3 at Velasco Avenue and Santos Street, where authorities said Faalogoifo boarded the back of the bus and fired several rounds at someone later identified as 20-year-old Francis Faasavalu—including three times in the neck.

Faalogoifo shot a second victim—a woman riding the bus with her granddaughter—on top of her left foot, according to the DA’s motion to detain the defendant. Prosecutors say the alleged gunman then called his brother—who was jailed on charges in a separate homicide—to gloat about the shooting.

Paramedics tried to revive the two people who were shot—a 20-year-old and 62-year-old woman—but the first died at the hospital.

The August attack marked the second Muni shooting in San Francisco in 2022, and the third homicide in Visitacion Valley. 

A pretrial conference is set for Jan. 5.

Garrett Leahy can be reached at garrett@sfstandard.com