By Evan Sernoffsky
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón declined to file criminal charges Thursday against police officers in two controversial killings, including the 2015 shooting of Mario Woods in the Bayview neighborhood, which prompted widespread protests and sweeping reform efforts in the city force.
Gascón said he will not file charges against five officers who fired at Woods and two officers who shot and killed Luis Góngora Pat in the Mission District in 2016, because both men had knives and there was insufficient evidence to prove the officers acted unreasonably in defending themselves and others.
However, the district attorney expressed frustration over the incidents that put a spotlight on how police use force in San Francisco, saying he did not believe officers should have killed the men but was bound by the law not to press charges. In the Woods case, prosecutors said, cell phone videos showed Woods was not directly threatening officers with the knife when they fired 26 rounds at him.
“To the Woods family and the Góngora family, there are not enough words that I can say that are going to bring their loved ones back,” Gascón said. “I’m very sorry they lost a son, they lost a brother, a friend, because I don’t believe that was necessary.”
The killings, four months apart, ratcheted up tension between the Police Department and many of the communities its officers are assigned to protect. Both Woods, 26, and Góngora Pat, 45, were men of color and the shootings followed nationwide upheaval after police killings including the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Attorney John Burris, who sued the city on behalf of Woods’ family, said he didn’t expect criminal charges to be filed but was nonetheless disappointed.
“The shooting was excessive and unjustified,” Burris said. “They shouldn’t have been that quick to take a life. They had time to wait. No one was in serious danger.”
Góngora Pat’s family members stood outraged on the steps of the Hall of Justice after Gascón’s announcement.
“This is a very sad day. It is lamentable. It is extremely difficult for us,” said Luis Armando Poot Pat, a cousin, with the help of an interpreter. “Mr. Gascón is a coward. He is a person who does not represent the citizens. He did not have the courage to do his job.”
But Thursday’s decision was a “huge” relief for the officers in both cases, said Tony Montoya, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association. He said the announcement was “a long time coming” and “vindicated” the officers.
“These last 2½ years have been an emotional roller coaster ride for them,” Montoya said.
All of the officers were placed on paid leave for 90 days after the shootings by former Chief Greg Suhr, and upon returning to duty were placed in no-public-contact positions while the investigation went on.
“They are all looking forward to getting back to the job they love,” Montoya said.
The fatal shootings were among several in the city within a short period in San Francisco, leading to the resignation of Suhr in 2016 and prompting the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the police force and its policies.
Woods, an African American man, was killed Dec. 2, 2015. According to a 28-page report by the district attorney’s office, officers were called around 4:20 p.m. to Keith Street near Third Street in the Bayview, to check out a report of a stabbing by an erratic man later identified as Woods.
When police arrived, Woods was holding a 4½-inch blade, prosecutors said. Two officers reported that Woods told them, “I’m not going with you” and “You’re gonna have to f—ing shoot me.”
Nearly a dozen officers soon arrived to form a semicircle around Woods as he stood against a wall. The officers attempted to disarm him with pepper spray and by firing two beanbag rounds and four foam rounds, but Woods refused to drop his weapon and began shuffling slowly to his right along the wall. He was cut off by Officer Charles August, who later told investigators he wanted to prevent Woods from going toward bystanders who were at a bus stop on the block.
As Woods got within about 10 feet of August, he and four other officers — Winston Seto, Antonio Santos, Nicholas Cuevas and Scott Phillips — opened fire, striking Woods 20 times. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Less than two minutes elapsed between initial contact and the shooting, according to the district attorney’s report.
Two days after the incident, Suhr told an emotional town hall crowd that Woods had pointed his blade at August. The district attorney’s investigation contradicted that claim, but noted that a suspect with a knife can “pose a lethal threat and (officers) do not have to wait for an individual to ‘attack’ them in order to use lethal force.”
The medical examiner’s report said Woods was under the influence of methamphetamine.
Investigators with the district attorney’s office consulted with supervisors at the Police Department’s Training Academy as well as an independent use-of-force expert, both of whom concluded the officers acted in accordance with their training.
The city Police Commission began revising the department’s use-of-force policy after the shooting, putting more emphasis on de-escalation. In February 2016, Suhr and Lee held a news conference announcing further changes designed to defuse situations with knife-wielding suspects.
But on April 7, 2016, police shot and killed Góngora Pat, a Mexican immigrant, on Shotwell Street between 18th and 19th streets in the Mission District.
The incident began shortly after 10 a.m. when workers from the Department of Public Health’s Homeless Outreach Team reported that a homeless man was in the area waving a large kitchen knife.
Two police officers and a sergeant sped to the scene and ordered Góngora Pat to drop an 8-inch knife, according to the district attorney’s 35-page report on the incident.
Góngora Pat initially dropped the knife but picked it back up, the report said. The officers commanded him again to drop the weapon in English and Spanish before Officer Michael Mellone fired four beanbag rounds at him, officials said.
That’s when Góngora Pat jumped up, knife in hand, and charged at Sgt. Nathaniel Steger, according to the district attorney’s report. Eight witnesses confirmed that account, prosecutors said, but other witnesses gave contradictory statements that investigators said were not supported by the physical evidence.
Steger and Mellone opened fire and hit Góngora Pat six times, including a fatal shot to the head, the report said.
The medical examiner’s report found he was under the influence of methamphetamine at a level “high enough to kill or hospitalize a non-habitual user.”
The shooting became more controversial after surveillance video from a nearby building emerged and showed that only 30 seconds passed between the time officers exited their patrol vehicles and when they fired.
In the days and weeks after the shooting, a group of demonstrators known as the Frisco Five began a hunger strike and called on Suhr to be fired. Protesters converged on City Hall, clashing with sheriff’s deputies as they flooded the rotunda. The building was damaged in a raucous protest that ended in 33 arrests.
Suhr hung on until May 19, 2016, when a police sergeant shot and killed an unarmed car-theft suspect, Jessica Williams, in the Bayview. Within hours, the chief resigned.
On Thursday, Gascón invited Woods’ and Góngora Pat’s families to his office to explain his decisions, but both declined to take the meetings.
Mayor Mark Farrell issued a statement Thursday saying he respected Gascón’s decision and supported the work of the Police Department, while acknowledging the pain that the decision “will cause in communities that have for so long been disproportionately impacted by violence.”
Gascón has supported AB931, which would require police to use lethal force only when “necessary” to prevent imminent death or injury and there is no reasonable alternative.
“I want the community to understand that I’m very disturbed by these uses of force as well as others, and I’m going to do everything that I can in order to move the law in a different direction,” Gascón said.
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