The 24-year-old homeless kid who was shot last week by an off-duty FBI agent in the Haight is speaking out, and the story, if true, is all kinds of effed up.
Tad Crane tells the Examiner this week he was just playing guitar on the street near the corner of Haight and Ashbury on Saturday, February 8, smoking weed, when a federal agent apparently decided he wanted to make an arrest.
This being the Haight, and this being California in 2020, Crane was incredulous that this was even happening, and he says that the off-duty agent failed to show a badge.
"We weren’t even selling any drugs," Crane says. And he explains that a friend of his came up and skimmed some weed from a joint, which is when the agent approached, told the pair that he was "police," and ordered them against the wall. Crane says the friend was searched, and because the agent was in plain clothes and never showed a badge, he challenged him and said he was a "fake cop," to which the agent responded by showing his gun.
Speaking from his hospital bed Tuesday, Tad Crane said he thought the agent, who was not in uniform, was a 'fake cop' https://t.co/uiQAbe3pQ1
— SF Examiner (@sfexaminer) February 19, 2020
Crane made the mistake of continuing to challenge the guy — also, this was a Saturday night, was the agent drunk? Crane tells the Examiner, "I set my guitar down and said ‘dude, take your BB gun to your momma’s house.' I started putting him in his place really hard for pulling a gun on some kids on Haight Street."
Crane claims he lifted his shirt to show he wasn't armed, but when he stepped toward the agent, the guy "stumbled" backwards and shot twice, injuring Crane. After he was shot, the agent apparently showed his badge. Meanwhile Crane says someone stole his guitar and laptop while he was being tended to by paramedics.
The SFPD and FBI have not yet commented other than to confirm the shooting occurred after an "altercation."
Is anybody from the FBI going to explain why one of their agents, not on duty, shot an unarmed homeless man because he was smoking weed and taunting him? How the hell are they going to spin this?