The SFPD has identified the two officers involved in the April 7 shooting of homeless man Luis Gongora as Sgt. Nate Steger and Officer Michael Mellone, both veteran police officers who together shot four beanbag rounds and seven bullets at Gongora on Shotwell Street.

According to a statement by the department, picked up by KQED, Steger has been with the SFPD for 17 years, with most of his career spent in the Mission District. Mellone has been with the department for four years and has a combined 13 years in law enforcement.

Mellone was involved in a rescue effort last year in which he became the first SFPD officer to administer a life-saving dose of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone after he found man overdosing on heroin and rolling around in the street at 16th and Shotwell.

Chief Greg Suhr has had to answer many pointed questions about the killing of Gongora, and an investigation is ongoing as to Steger and Mellone's actions that morning. Per the Chronicle and a slightly more detailed version of events than we've heard previously, Steger and Mellone arrived on the scene at the homeless encampment after getting a call from an outreach worker who had seen Gongora wielding a knife and appeared to be in an altered mental state. Contrary to this description of the events leading up to the shooting that came out last week from a witness in the encampment, the outreach workers say they arrived to investigate a report of a baby crying, and were not, as that witness said, going tent to tent to tell people to clear out that morning.

As we saw in that surveillance video, Steger and Mellone begin shooting at Gongora after just a couple of commands to drop a kitchen knife, within 30 seconds of exiting their squad car. Witnesses have said Gongora was sitting down and the knife was on the ground, however the officers still insist that Gongora picked the knife up and lunged toward them.

At a town hall meeting on 18th Street last Wednesday, as Mission Local reports, members of the community expressed much outrage over the killing and again called for the firing of Chief Suhr. One woman, attorney and human rights activist Adriana Camarena who has been actively involved in protests over the Alex Nieto shooting, described being threatened by an officer while she was trying to film their dismantling of tents on Shotwell Street two days after the shooting. He shined a flashlight at her and allegedly suggested that he was concerned about her pointing something at him, implying that he could be justified in shooting her, she says.

Previously: Eighth Witness Disputes SFPD Account Of Gongora Shooting, Says He Was Using Knife On Tree