A standoff with an “armed individual threatening to harm themselves and not complying with officers' commands” at Embarcadero and Brannan streets began just after noon Monday, and much of that area remained blocked off for hours.

We first heard there was some sort of developing police activity near the Embarcadero via a Reddit post at about 12 noon on Monday. By 12:30 pm, the SF Department of Emergency Management had a Twitter update saying “Avoid the area of Embarcadero and Brannan Streets due to Police Activity. Emergency crews are on scene. Expect traffic delays, consider alternate routes, and allow for additional travel time.”

That message, of course, fails to inform us of what this “police activity” is all about. But by 1:07 pm Monday, the SFPD was being a lot more explicit about what was going on.

“Officers are currently at Embarcadero/Brannan regarding an armed individual threatening to harm themselves and not complying with officers' commands,” the SFPD announced just after 1 pm. “Our Hostage/Crisis Negotiation Team is on scene and working for a peaceful resolution.”

NBC Bay Area identifies the suspect simply as “ a woman who is armed and not complying to commands.” KRON4 has some Citizen app video from the scene where officers are closing down streets, but it does not offer many insights to the standoff at hand.

Obviously, Police officers themselves are also still trying to make sense of this situation. If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the SFPD tip line at (415) 575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Related: Man Arrested Following Hours-Long Police Standoff After Barricading Himself Inside Palace Hotel [SFist]

Image via Citizen App

The corner of Eddy and Leavenworth streets was mobbed with police cars for hours Friday morning, as a man reportedly attacked a woman, and then barricaded himself inside his residence for nearly eight hours.

There was a tense scene in the Tenderloin Friday morning, as KRON4 reported there was “police activity between Eddy St. between Leavenworth St. and Jones St.,” and the public was advised to avoid the area. An early morning alert from the SF Department of Emergency Management advised “Emergency crews are on scene,” and to “Expect traffic delays, consider alternate routes, and allow for additional travel time.”

KPIX had an update later in the morning that this was related to a dispute that had turned violent between an unnamed man and an unnamed woman. They added the detail that police had been called in at 4:37 a.m. Friday to the 300 block of Eddy Street, and while police were able to make contact with the woman, the man barricaded himself inside his residence and would not communicate with police.  

The woman was quickly taken to the hospital and reportedly treated for non-life-threatening injuries.  

As of 11:30 Friday morning, per KPIX, police were still unable to make contact with the man, and a heavy police presence remained in the area.

But a little before 1 p.m., NBC Bay Area reported “The incident was resolved and police cleared the scene shortly after noon.” They did not add any detail on whether the man was arrested, or his identity.

Related: Armed Ex-Cop Taken Into Custody After Days-Long Standoff in Pleasant Hill [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

San Francisco residents were being advised to avoid the area of Eddy and Franklin streets Wednesday afternoon, due to a standoff with an armed suspect.

Police received a report of an armed man in the vicinity of the Fillmore District at 12:22 p.m. Wednesday. As NBC Bay Area reports, they ultimately found the suspect inside a car with a gun at Eddy and Franklin streets.

The man reportedly has not responded to officers' attempts to communicate with him.

Hostage and crisis negotiators are on the scene, and no further details about the suspect or what was happening before the standoff have been released.

This situation seems likely to impact traffic on Franklin Street for the foreseeable future.

Update: As of 3:50 p.m., ALERTSF sent out an update that the situation had been resolved.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In unincorporated Gilroy, California early Sunday morning, a man barricaded himself inside a home after firing a weapon at sheriff's deputies who had arrived to perform a welfare check, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office.

Officials first confirmed the incident in a tweet Sunday morning, saying that the standoff began at about 8 a.m., when the deputies tried to make contact with the man. The man, whose identity has not been released, responded by pulling out a gun and firing at them, the Chronicle reported.

The deputies reportedly took cover and called for backup, prompting the department's Emergency Response Team and Crisis Negotiations Team to arrive as well at the scene on the 3000 block of Dryden Avenue at Bishop Court.

These teams were "using all available de-escalation tactics for a peaceful resolution," according to the sheriff.

However, as of this afternoon, the sheriff’s public information officer, Russell Davis, told ABC7 News that the suspect continues to fire rounds out at deputies on scene. Davis said that it remains an active scene as of 1 p.m. Sunday.

Authorities did not say whether or not anyone had been injured or released more details. The situation seems to still be developing.

Image via Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons.

UPS employees have been sheltering in place since about 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, as a man with "what is believed to be a rifle" was menacing a San Jose neighborhood and is now barricaded in an RV.

There is obviously no good time or place for the possibility of an active shooter situation, but four days before Christmas at a UPS customer center is especially bad. Yet that is the situation unfolding right now in San Jose, as the Chronicle reports that San Jose police say a man brandishing “what is believed to be a rifle" started threatening customers at the UPS center shortly after 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and has now barricaded himself in an RV while police attempt to negotiate a peaceful end to all this.

According to KTVU, the situation is unfolding at the San Jose UPS customer center in the 2000 block of South Seventh Street. Thus far no one has been harmed, and no shots have been fired. But UPS employees and customers have been sheltering in place since police were called at 7:40 a.m. Obviously, the late May San Jose VTA mass shooting is still fresh in people’s minds, so that's surely adding to the trauma.

San Jose Police say “Tactical negotiators are on scene attempting to speak to the suspect” and that as of about 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, “A contingent of Special Operations Officers are responding to assist. We are working towards a peaceful surrender and conclusion to this incident.”

Yet clearly police are none too happy with a news helicopter they feel is flying way too close to the scene. “Whichever media outlet has a helicopter over the scene, please orbit higher or clear,” they say in the above tweet. “You are interfering with ground operations and our Officers are having a hard time hearing each other.”

This is the situation as we know it now, and SFist will update this post with any developments or resolution.

Related: Standoff With Heavily Armed Man In Berkeley Ends Peacefully [SFist]

Image: Phil H. via Yelp

Avoid the area of 48TH Avenue, Between Kirkham and Lawton due to #SFPD activity. #SF pic.twitter.com/BqNyKjZg4C

— San Francisco Police (@SFPD) October 16, 2017

A police standoff that closed an Outer Sunset block was precipitated by an ax attack, officials said Tuesday morning.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the incident occurred on the 1500 block of 48th Avenue, which is between Kirkham and Lawton Streets.

Police say that they were called to the area at 1:57 p.m. Monday, when an argument between two 47-year-old men turned violent. According to the SFPD, as the dispute escalated, the suspect "grabbed an ax and hit [the victim] causing injury."

The ax-wielding man "then retreated into the house and refused to come out," police say.

According to Nextdoor users in the area, police then closed the full block of 48th between Kirkham and Lawton. Meanwhile, "additional units responded," police say.

Eventually the suspect "came out of the house and was taken into custody." The victim, police say, suffered non-life threatening injuries in the assault and is expected to survive.

Related: Thief Asks For Change, Robs Sunset Business

We have a brief update in the case of the standoff and officer-involved shooting on I-80 that shut down the freeway for much of last Wednesday. As CBS 5 reports, a total of 13 officers from two police departments fired multiple rounds at 45-year-old Demilo Hodge, who had led them on a chase following an attempted traffic stop in Fairfield, and one officer had first fired non-lethal rounds at the suspect.

Hodge was wanted in connection with the December 10, 2015 homicide of 68-year-old William Freeman of Fairfield, as the Solano Daily Republic tells us. At the time, the Fairfield Police Department released sketches of two suspects, one of whom was a black male in a hoodie. Freeman was found dead in his home during a welfare check, and police did not believe it to be a random act of violence. More details in the case, like how Hodge may have been connected to Freeman, have yet to be released.

Hodge's vehicle, a black Chevrolet Suburban that he used as part of a wine country limo service he owned, was spotted in Fairfield around 8:40 a.m. on September 27, and officers there attempted to pull him over. He led them on a chase to the East Bay, where Richmond Police officers joined in the chase when he passed through their jurisdiction. (Earlier reports suggested Hodge was first spotted in Richmond.)

Over a dozen officers from both departments chased him south on I-80, where CHP officers laid a spike strip down in Berkeley that ultimately disabled Hodge's vehicle. After he collided with a median barrier, Hodge's SUV came to a stop in the middle of the freeway in Emeryville, where a trained crisis negotiator had what's described as a "lengthy" exchange with Hodge.

What followed sounds like the phenomenon of "suicide by cop." Hodge suddenly exited his vehicle, raised a gun, and allegedly fired a shot in the direction of the line of squad cars. 13 officers then unleashed the barrage of bullets captured on multiple cellphone cameras by motorists who were stopped on both sides of the freeway. He was fatally wounded and succumbed to his injuries at a hospital.

Emeryville Police and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office are each conducting their own investigations into the shooting, the results of which we will not likely hear for weeks or months.

Per CBS 5, the names of all the officers who fired shots have been released:

The Fairfield police officers who fired their department-issued guns included Sgt. Brent Pucci, with 20 years of law enforcement experience; Sgt. Kelly Rombach, with 16 years of experience; Officer John Divine, with 13 years of experience; Officer Erik Aagaard, with 12 years of experience; Officer Shane Raftery, with 4 years of experience; and Officer James Sehr, with 3 years of experience.

Officer Michael Ambrose, with 7 years of experience, was the officer who deployed the less-lethal weapons, according to department spokesman Sgt. Matt Bloesch.

The Richmond police officers who fired their weapons included Sgt. D Decious, with 16 years of experience; Sgt. C. Llamas, with 15 years experience; Detective A. Diaz, with 9 years of experience; Detective M. Ricchutto, with 6 years of experience; Officer B. Mendler, with 9 years of experience; Officer O. Guzman, with 5 years of experience; and Officer C. Tagorda, with 10 years of experience.

Previously: Man Killed By Police On I-80 Was Fairfield Homicide Suspect; Witnesses On Freeway Sought

A man who was fatally shot by Richmond and Fairfield police Wednesday morning on I-80 in Emeryville was a suspect in a 2015 Fairfield homicide who had been spotted driving a black Chevrolet SUV around Richmond, and then led police on a chase down 80 through Berkeley. Police employed a spike strip across the freeway before he could get to the MacArthur Maze, and around 9 a.m. the car collided with a guard rail and came to a stop in the middle of the freeway. A standoff of at least several minutes ensued with traffic halted in both directions and hundreds of witnesses in cars on eastbound I-80, until the suspect exited his vehicle, possibly with a weapon in hand, and was met with a barrage of bullets — six seconds of rapid gunfire, as ABC 7 reports via eyewitness video you can see above.

Emeryville police are now taking the lead in investigating the officer-involved shooting, and Emeryville Police Chief Jennifer Tejada tells ABC 7, "If you look at the video that's available on social media it looks like he has a weapon in his hand." Further, she said, they have not yet determined how many police officers fired on the man.

Officers say the suspect fired at them first. The suspect has been identified as 45-year-old Demilo Hodge of San Leandro, as the Mercury News reports, and the Chevy Suburban he was driving was registered to a San Francisco limousine service. The Napa Valley Register, strangely, interviewed Hodge over a year ago in his role as a driver for Executive Excursion Limousine Service. In it he described himself as "a businessman with a heart of gold. I am very sentimental, caring and devoted as well as dedicated to people’s happiness and joy." *

Fairfield police spokesman Sgt. Jeff Osgood tells the Chronicle, "Officers negotiated with the suspect for an extended period of time until officers received gunfire from the suspect. Officers on scene returned fire, and the suspect was struck during the exchange."

Tejada says they are already talking to 40 commuters who witnessed the shooting, but they continue to seek more video from witnesses

The standoff, shooting, and ensuing investigation shut down all the westbound lanes of I-80 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., snarling East Bay traffic as a result. Eastbound lanes had already been stalled starting after a big-rig truck toppled over around 7 a.m. near the Gilman Street exit, closing down two lanes there for a full eight hours.

As the Chronicle notes, it made for an extraordinarily chaotic Wednesday for commuters, which also saw major BART delays at rush hour due to a dog on the tracks at Coliseum Station, and traffic snarls on the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge after an AC Transit bus crashed into several vehicles and a construction site next to the Fremont Street off-ramp.

* This post has been updated with information about the slain suspect's identity.

Previously: Police Chase On I-80 Ends In Standoff And Shooting In Emeryville

#SFPD still on scene of deadly #OIS. Salmon St. between Taylor/Mason closed down. @kron4news pic.twitter.com/K23Oywd0Q4

— Philippe Djegal (@pdjegal) September 24, 2017

A standoff between an allegedly armed man and police ended in gunfire Sunday, when police say they fatally shot the man while raiding a Nob Hill residence.

According to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Sergeant Mike Andraychak, police were called to a residence on Salmon Street, a short alley between Taylor and Mason Streets, just off Pacific Avenue at 11:35 p.m. Saturday on reports of a "domestic violence situation involving a weapon."

When officers arrived, they learned that an allegedly armed man, who police said Monday was 38 years old, had barricaded himself in the apartment with his wife (aged 41,police said Monday) and two children, aged 5 and 11. Andraychak says that responding officers could hear yelling coming from the apartment in question, and "within minutes of their arrival, the officers heard a gunshot inside the apartment."

That spurred the SFPD to summon their tactical unit and crisis hostage negotiators to the scene. The latter made contact with the man, Andraychak says, "and engaged in dialogue with him throughout the morning," attempting to convince the man to release the woman and children and surrender himself.

However, by 2:50 Sunday morning, the man was apparently done speaking with negotiators, and ceased communications, Andraychak says. He says that police then heard another gunshot, and "fearing for the safety of the hostages, the tactical team entered the apartment."

When they entered the apartment, police shot the man. He was transported to an area hospital for treatment, where he succumbed to his injuries. As of Monday morning, he had not been publicly identified by police or the San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office.

Andraychak says that the woman and two children who'd been in the apartment with the man were treated and released at the scene. Andraychak has not confirmed that a gun was found at the scene, but says that the shooting is being investigated by the SFPD Homicide Detail, the SFPD Internal Affairs Division, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the Department of Police Accountability and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The Chron reports that neighbors say the man lived in the apartment, with one telling the paper that "the children sometimes played in the street, but that her interactions with the man never amounted to more than a friendly wave."

It’s shocking that something like this could happen in the neighborhood,” the neighbor told the Chron.

“The neighbors all know each other, but that family pretty much just kept to themselves.”

Andraychak asks that anyone with information on the case to contact the SFPD Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or to Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD. He says that additional details on the shooting will be released "as it becomes available," and that "a town hall meeting regarding the incident will be held within ten days."

Related: Man Shot By SFPD Had Moved To SF To Start Fitness Business

A mentally ill man who was put on a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold two months previously is now in custody after allegedly murdering his mother, engaging in a 15-hour standoff with police Sunday night into Monday, and then turning a gun on himself. While the SFPD has not publicly named him, Mission Local has all but confirmed that 52-year-old Thomas Ragsdale was arrested in the shooting, though he may still be recovering from the self-inflicted bullet wound to the chest that got on Monday afternoon. And it was Ragsdale whom police visited nearly two months earlier, on June 5, after a family member called them concerned that he was "hearing voices" and could potentially be a danger to himself and others.

As Mission Local learns, Ragsdale's mother, 76-year-old Martha Alfaro, answered the door at 2443 15th Street that night in June, and when Ragsdale came to the door, he had a gun holstered on his hip. A further look inside yielded a massive arsenal of guns and ammunition, including half a dozen pistols, a shotgun, and an unmodified AK-47, as well as high-capacity magazines and 28,000 bullets. Ragsdale claimed that he could hear through the walls of the house that the neighbors were plotting to kill him, and police subsequently placed him on the psychiatric hold, from which he would later be freed on June 9.

CBS 5 confirmed Thursday that Martha Alfaro was the victim in last Sunday's shooting. She was apparently found on the street and succumbed to her wounds at SF General. Knowing what they already knew about Ragsdale and guns registered to him that police never found, it's now understandable why the standoff at his home lasted 15 hours.

An elderly female neighbor was contacted by police and she told them she did not know Ragsdale and did not want him dead, and Ragsdale's adult son told police that these claims were all in his father's head.

The open questions are now why Ragsdale was allowed to amass such an arsenal of weapons and why his mental illness had gone untreated.

Mission Local probes the legal issues surrounding forced commitment of the mentally ill to hospitals, which is extremely legally difficult since the passage of California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1972. Mort Cohen, a law professor at Golden Gate University, tells Mission Local that "The system is now geared to protect the individual who is being detained... to a greater extent than the individuals who might be at risk" at the hands of the mentally ill individual.

Thus, when the SF District Attorney's office felt there was not enough probable cause to charge Ragsdale back in June, and with the psychiatric community's hands tied, he was released back to his mother's house, where he would ultimately end up (allegedly) killing her in less than 60 days.

And the residents of 15th Street in Corona Heights are certainly right to feel uneasy that a man with obvious mental health problems and a huge cache of weaponry was living in their midst, liable at any moment to crack.

Previously: Police In Standoff With Suspect In Corona Heights Shooting

The standoff that began Sunday night at 11:45 p.m. at 15th and Beaver Streets, near Corona Heights and the Castro, ended abruptly Monday afternoon with the suspect shooting himself, as the Chronicle reports.

The man, described as 52 years old, was transported to the hospital at 2:45 p.m. with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. He had barricaded himself with a weapon for almost exactly 15 hours at that point, after the shooting of a woman in her 60s who was found outside the home.

According to the Chronicle, police are investigating whether mental health issues were at play in the case, though no motive has yet been given. The woman, who has not been publicly identified, succumbed to her injuries, police say.

Previously: Police In Standoff With Suspect In Corona Heights Shooting, Shelter In Place Ordered For Area

We're now learning more about the suspect who was at the center of the shelter-in-place emergency and seven-hour standoff at the Crown Hotel on Valencia Street Friday. 57-year-old Samantha Helstrom, a trans ex-Marine who grew up in San Francisco, tells ABC 7 in a jailhouse interview that she's sorry for what happened, some of which she does not remember because she had been drinking, but she still feels that the SFPD's handling of the situation was an overreaction and made little sense. Also, the gun she brandished that started the entire drama turns out to be a replica gun.

"That was not a de-escalation," Helstrom says. "That was an escalation."

She's been charged with two misdemeanor counts of brandishing a replica weapon and was still jailed as of Monday night.

Also we now learn that Helstrom was the subject of a rather sensational 2001 piece in the Chronicle in which a reporter followed her to a Thailand hospital to observe her sex reassignment surgery, from inside the operating room. At the time, Helstrom was 41 and a frequenter of goth clubs in the city, and the piece gets fairly offensive in its squeamishness over Helstrom's trans status and sexual orientation — it's also a bit of an anachronism in Helstrom's own casual use of the word "tranny" and the fact that she's repeatedly mistaken for a gay man and called gay slurs on the streets.

Friday's incident began when a building manager and pest-control worker knocked on the door of Helstrom's room in the SRO where she lives at 528 Valencia Street. She tells ABC 7 that she had been depressed and consumed a significant amount of alcohol, and had fallen asleep while watching a movie. The next thing she remembers is hearing her name being shouted and negotiators were demanding she come out of her room. "I told them, 'I didn't do anything.'"

As NBC Bay Area reports from a similar interview in the behavioral unit at SF County Jail, Helstrom has no memory of pulling the gun on anyone. She does, however, remember stepping into the hallway and being struck by non-lethal rubber bullets, and saying, "Shoot me, shoot me." She clarifies, "It wasn't like 'kill me.' I don't know if I said 'kill me' because they were shooting at me." Also, she tells the station, that she is not suicidal. "I have two kids; I don't want to go anywhere."

The Examiner has delved into the role that the Department of Public Health played in Friday's negotiations with Helstrom, who as of last fall now have a formal agreement, via the mayor, to play a role in handling mental health crises with the police. This is all part of the SFPD's new mandate for de-escalation following a spate of officer-involved shootings with questionably armed, mentally unstable or erratic people.

Already, the SFPD and DPH have identified 100 mentally ill individuals who are the most frequently in need of hospitalization, and in fact there was one individual who was hospitalized via 5150 — the police code for a forced mental health hospitalization — 48 times in one year, or nearly once a week.

But it's unclear where communication broke down over Helstrom's situation — why she was not identified as intoxicated, or how police and the DPH determined that she was a potential threat to them or herself over the course of the seven-hour standoff.

"They could have rushed me, taken me down," Helstrom said to NBC Bay Area. "I think it was an outrageous waste of money."

But ABC 7 notes that Helstrom was already known to police via a 2012 incident at an SRO in North Beach in which she says she accidentally shot at her own hotel room door. At the time police said they found evidence of possible explosives inside the room.

And SFPD spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca tells ABC 7, "We're not going to leave it at chance for anyone or anything that might cause an incident to get worse, especially when you're thinking about the well-being and the safety of the public."

Previously: Armed 60-Year-Old Woman Prompts Shelter-In-Place Drama In The Mission

A bizarre and scary situation erupted in the heart of the Mission District Friday afternoon after a possibly mentally unstable woman allegedly pulled a gun on an exterminator, and the SFPD declared a shelter-in-place emergency for Valencia Street between 15th and 18th Streets. In total, the standoff lasted about seven hours and put a damper on what would otherwise have been a busy evening in the Mission.

As ABC 7 reports, the situation began with a call to police at 1:55 p.m. after a pest-control worker knocked on the door of the woman's apartment in the Crown Hotel on the 500 block of Valencia.

The worker said the woman pulled a gun on him when she opened the door, and when police arrived, they found the woman barricaded in her apartment. according to NBC Bay Area.

Rumors went out on Twitter that there was an "active shooter" in the neighborhood, however no shots were ever fired.

To end the standoff at around 9 p.m., the woman apparently "stepped into the hallway" of the building, and surrendered. She was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Mission Local spoke to one of the other residents at the SRO where the incident took place, who explained that the situation there is often "stressful" with multiple residents suffering from mental illness. “I hope that nobody hurts her,” Joanne Brewster said to Mission Local. She described the woman as "quiet," and a veteran, and added, “I had a funny feeling sooner or later something is going to happen."

Pierre Dyson, the man who was at the center of a four-hour standoff with the SFPD on July 6 that became one of the first high-profile opportunities for San Francisco police to display their new training in de-escalation techniques, appeared in court Friday and was granted bail. He spoke exclusively with ABC 7, as reporter Melanie Woodrow caught him and his family at the Hall of Justice, and Dyson says he's grateful to be alive.

"I was just thankful that I'm still here and the police did their job as far as not killing me," he said to Woodrow, showing off an injured elbow in a brace, scars on his face, and a spot on one arm where a rubber bullet left a mark. Dyson also suffered broken ribs, and was said to be in critical condition shortly after the incident.

The situation allegedly began when Dyson, possibly high on something or in an "altered mental state," was approached by two bicycle cops on Jones Street near Market, outside the Hibernia Bank building. Dyson allegedly brandished a weapon and said he'd rather die than go back to jail, after having apparently recently served some time, possibly in Nevada. What ensued was a four-hour standoff, much of which Dyson spent prone on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets.

He now tells ABC 7 that he refused to take his hands out of his pockets because he was terrified police were going to kill him if he took them out.

Unlike the seemingly unhinged man who refused to comply with police commands that day, Dyson appears calm and quite sane in the video footage above.

Police recovered a revolver and ammunition from Dyson after the situation was resolved that day, with Dyson wheeled away on a stretcher after being shot repeatedly with non-lethal rounds.

He's now said to be entering a treatment program for an undisclosed substance abuse issue, and he will later have to face felony charges, including one charge of possession of a firearm by a felon.

His attorney Kleigh Hathaway tells ABC 7 that "prison would be a disaster" for Dyson and hopes that a judge will be lenient. The DA's office, meanwhile, says, "We believe these charges are highly appropriate considering the nature of the crime and the nature of the situation that led to his arrest."

Previously: Police Take Allegedly Armed, Mentally Ill Man Into Custody, Ending Four-Hour Mid-Market Standoff

A man holed up in an apartment at the corner of Miramar and Ocean Avenues has been in a standoff with police for unclear reasons since midday Wednesday, according to neighbors. A tipster sent SFist the above photo from Thursday morning, showing Miramar Avenue taped off by police and several members of the local media with cameras.

The circumstances surrounding the standoff remained unclear as of Wednesday night, according to the Chronicle, and the SFPD was being vague about it. Department spokesperson Ofc. Grace Gatpandan simply said that officers had responded to the situation at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. A SWAT team was called in and was trying to communicate with the man.

It remains uncertain if the man engaged in the standoff has a weapon, or what kind of weapon it is, or if he has made threats against himself or others.

I'll update you as we learn more.