A judge was set to decide Wednesday whether there is sufficient evidence to move forward to prosecute two SF shelter workers who were accused by the District Attorney of harboring a suspect who shot an SFPD officer on May 31. The workers say they were hostages under duress.
In August we learned that police and the District Attorney's Office believe that two workers at the eight-year-old Bayshore Navigation Center had conspired to help a shooting suspect escape and disguise himself on the night of May 31, shortly after he allegedly shot and gravely wounded SFPD Officer Brittney Taylor.
The suspect, Norris Reed III, had been driving an allegedly stolen vehicle with an accomplice, Ariunsanaa Dolgorsuren, in the passenger's seat. The vehicle was picked up by Flock cameras entering the city from the Bay Bridge on the night of May 31, and after spotting it in SoMa, SFPD officers gave chase.
Reed allegedly evaded arrest and sped off toward the Bayview, where the vehicle eventually crashed into a median at Jerrold Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard, across the street from the Navigation Center.
In bodycam video seen below, Reed appears to open the driver's side door and immediately fire on the SFPD officers following the crash. The ensuing shootout, in which a reported 19 shots were fired, left both Dolgorsuren and Taylor with critical injuries, and Reed fled the scene as police were tending to the victims.
It would be another hour and a half before Reed was apprehended, and his arrest at the Navigation Center can be seen in the later video segments above. A staff member called police at 12:17 am to report that Reed was "sitting on a bench" in the Navigation Center courtyard, and police then descended and arrested him without incident.
What we have not seen is video from inside the Navigation Center that led District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to file charges in August against two employees at the alternative shillalah, 36-year-old Oliver Barcenas and 45-year-old Erika Porter. The video reportedly shows Barcenas and Porter interacting with Reed and even giving him new clothes to wear — and Jenkins says the video is "stunning" evidence that the pair "made a choice” to “aid and abet” a criminal.
Not so, say other staffers at the Navigation Center and its former CEO Steve Good. As Mission Local reports today, and as attorneys for Barcenas and Porter will likely argue in court, the pair responded that night to a clearly agitated Reed who brandished two firearms as he entered the shelter.
An attorney for Barcenas, Gabriel Navarrete, tells Mission Local that Reed got past courtyard staff at the shelter because they assumed he was a client. But further inside, at a security checkpoint, another staffer who did not recognize him questioned him, and that is when the weapons came out.
Reed then instructed the staff not to call the police, according to Good.
After Reed had been sitting on a bench in the shelter's courtyard, allegedly smoking and doing drugs, for an extended period of time, Bcarcenas and Porter reportedly evacuated the shelter guests and an unidentified staffer called 911 to report that Reed was there.
Around 100 people were staying at the shelter that night, and Reed calls the staffers' actions heroic. And other staffers have called the incident "terrifying" and "traumatizing."
Police were clearly convinced that Porter and Barcenas were acting of their own free will in helping Reed, and one officer reportedly wrote on an Instagram story, after their arrest, that they were "commie shitbags."
Per Mission Local, a judge is scheduled to decide if the DA's office has evidence to go to trial, or if the video complicates matters.
Previously: Two SF Navigation Center Employees Accused of Harboring Police Shooting Suspect
