Criminal Justice
A shooting occurred at the intersection of 9th and Howard streets in SoMa on February 27, 2023. | Morgan Ellis/The Standard
An apparent drive-by shooting rocked San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood Monday afternoon, shocking locals and leaving a block riddled with bullets. Police are on the scene and investigating.
Residents of an apartment building at the busy intersection of Ninth and Howard streets say it sounded like machine gun fire.
One man, who declined to give his name, said he was working from home when he heard 30 to 50 shots fired.
“I kind of thought it was a car backfiring, but then I saw some people just booking it down the street,” he said. “It’s fucking scary.”
Next, he saw a white Mercedes—“a nice sports car,” he said—with a broken window speed the wrong way down Howard Street.
Police were more cautious in describing the incident.
Luke Martin, a San Francisco police captain in charge of the crime scene, said it appeared that a vehicle was driving north on Ninth Street when one or two people started shooting.
“There’s a lot of shell casings in the street,” Martin said. “As of right now, we don’t have any victims.”
But residents of the apartment building at the intersection believe that people in one car fired at another.
They are still reeling from the incident.
“Our neighborhood just got hosed down with gunfire,” said a woman, who declined to give her name. “I was just here, and 30 seconds later, I heard gunfire. I was saved by angels today.”
“You were being protected, I swear,” another man said.
Matthew Kupfer can be reached at [email protected]
