Eighth Witness Says Homeless Man Did Not Lunge at Officers in Police Shooting

http://missionlocal.org/2016/04/eighth-witness-says-homeless-man-did-not-lunge-at-officers-in-police-shooting/


A homeless man living in an encampment near where Luis Gongora was shot and killed by San Francisco police officers last week said Thursday that he witnessed the incident from a distance and said that he did not see Gongora lunge at the officers who shot him.


He did say that that Gongora used his knife on a tree, possibly in anger at an impending sweep of the encampment before officers arrived. Police were called to the scene after Gongora was seen “swinging a knife around in a chopping motion,” according to Police Chief Greg Suhr.


Carlos Guevara said he was “at least” twenty feet away from the scene of the shooting when he witnessed the fatal confrontation a week prior. Guevera lives in an encampment on 19th Street, around the corner from the Shotwell Street encampment where Gongora lived.


“I saw everything, and I know the city worker who called the police,” said Guevara. The man said that on the morning Gongora was killed, members of the Department of Public Health’s Homeless Outreach Team were warning residents of the Shotwell encampment of a sweep.