Oddly enough I was talking to a retired BPD chief last month about the last time a BPD officer had to draw their gun, never mind discharge it. We seemed to recall it had been much more than a decade. Even the Wells Fargo robbery and murder on the Ave. may not have caused a weapon to be drawn as the robbers were quick. That streak came to an end on Saturday as the Comicle is reporting:
Around 2:53 a.m., officers responded to a 911 call reporting possible gunshots on the 800 block of North San Mateo Drive, according to the San Mateo Police Department. Officers found a man walking near the intersection of Jefferson Court and State Street. He pointed a firearm at the officers, causing them to move out of the line of fire, and then ran north on Jefferson Court, police said.
The officers, “fearing for their lives,” requested additional police units before chasing after the man, but they lost sight of him, police said. A Burlingame police officer located him a quarter-mile away, near the intersection of Bayswater Avenue and Myrtle Road, where he was holding a gun and standing in the middle of the roadway, police said. Officers said they tried to deescalate the situation by giving the man verbal commands and discharged a rubber projectile to prompt him to drop his firearm, but he did not comply. At 4 a.m., one San Mateo officer and one Burlingame officer shot and struck the man, causing him to fall to the ground, police said.
The man was reported to be in stable condition after the hour-long engagement. The usual follow-up: administrative leave for the two officers and investigations by BPD, SMPB and the DA will eventually tell us the rest of the story including the part that gets glossed over–the original "possible gunshots".
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