Tales of police and civilian clashes are at worst harrowing and at best downright fascinating. This recent story of SFPD confusion thrust upon a San Franciscan takes a little from the former and latter. Adam Lynn of Hella Rad explains how a cop followed him home this past week, entered his residence, and thew him to the ground with the assumption that he was a person of interest wanted in connection for bringing a rifle (!) onto Muni.
After the ordeal, which we'll get to in a second, the cop was decent enough to allow Lynn to snap a photo of his visage and badge. (Which is what law enforcement officers are supposed to do, because.)
On his blog, Lynn writes:
This shit head cop chased me into my house an forced me to the ground. The cop didn’t identify himself so I thought someone was trying to break into my house. Apparently some guy had a rifle on muni and there looking for him. We look alike. #occupy #sf #cops #gonewild (at Lower Haight)
SFist contacted Lynn for more details.
Going into more detail, could you tell us what happened to you on that day?
"I was walking home after work and as soon as I got to my door this Guy ran at me as I was trying to put my keys in the door so I could slam the door on him because I didn't know who he was or what he was doing and then I was almost inside trying to slam the door on him he kicked the door open and threw me on the ground and kept asking me for my name. and i kept on asking him to identify himself. During this I was screaming at my girlfriend to call the police because I thought he was trying to rob me or break into my house and I'm wasn't going to let that happen."
What happened after the cop realized he made a mistake?
"Soon after he knew he was wrong he told me that he was searching for a man that was 6"2 that had a rifle on Muni last week and he was following me from 14th St. all the way to the lower haight because he said I was wearing a beanie."
How exactly did the picture of the cop holding his badge come about?
"After this all blew over I was pretty mad so I went out there and I said a few things to the cop then requested to get his picture with his badge number. When I looked up the criminal report they had, I found nothing like the man for whom they were searching. As for SFPD, I recently had my phone stolen from me pretty much in front of cops. They told me to go file a police report. I feel so unsafe in this town it's gotten to a point where I need to take the law into my own hands if needed."
No word yet if SFPD apprehended the bad man with the rifle.