San Francisco Chronicle 11.23.2020
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced Monday that he has filed manslaughter charges against the police officer who fatally shot 42-year-old Keita O’Neil during a 2017 chase — the first time in modern history that the city’s top prosecutor has charged a police officer with homicide in a use-of-force case.
San Francisco Police Department Officer Christopher Samayoa had just graduated from the police academy and started field training when he shot O’Neil on Dec. 1, 2017. Boudin said that while he seeks to hold law enforcement officers just as accountable as civilian defendants, his commitment to “not overcharge” extends to the police.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/In-a-first-for-San-Francisco-DA-Chesa-Boudin-15748619.php
Attached below is a link to the November 23, 2020 San Francisco Examiner article on the indictment. The article shows footing of the actual police shooting captured on an SFPD body vid cam.
Following is the original story which appeared in the SF Chronicle following the police shooting.
San Francisco Chronicle archive 12.1.2017
A San Francisco police officer shot and killed a suspected carjacker who had injured a state lottery worker, stole her minivan and led police on a chase into a public housing complex in the city’s Bayview neighborhood on Friday, officials said.
The chase came to its deadly end inside the Alice Griffith Housing Development Double Rock, near the Gilman Playground and the Bret Harte Elementary School, police said.
The episode began about 10:30 a.m. when police responded to reports that the driver of a California State Lottery van was carjacked in the 1800 block of 23rd Street in Potrero Hill, said Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a San Francisco police spokesman.
The woman driving the van suffered “non-life-threatening injuries,” he said.
Police officers stopped the gold-colored SUV at Gilman Avenue and Ingalls Street. The men in the vehicle were detained without incident.
The driver hit a fence and got out of the van, at which point at least one officer opened fire, police said. It was not immediately clear whether the man was armed.
A patrol car stopped behind the lottery van had a shattered front passenger-side window, but police did not say how it was broken.
The suspected carjacker, identified by the city medical examiner’s office as 42-year-old Keita O’Neil, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Back at the scene, police examined bloody clothes and other evidence scattered between the patrol car and van.
The van, which was filled with boxes, was surrounded by crime scene tape and its rear hatch was raised.
The names of those arrested were not released.
State lottery officials declined to say what the van was transporting and referred questions to the San Francisco Police Department.
Russ Lopez, a lottery spokesman, said that the driver was not seriously injured in the carjacking.
“She’s shaken up, but we’re glad she’s OK,” Lopez said.
Lee's Perspective 