San Francisco police are investigating a homicide in the Portola neighborhood that occurred around 10 p.m. Thursday night.
Police arrived at the scene at Felton and Colby streets to find 19-year-old Kelvin Chew fatally wounded, and he was later declared dead at an area hospital. As the Examiner reports, the SFPD has not released many details, and while a gun was used "as a weapon," they have not clarified whether Chew was shot.
This homicide marks the city's 17th of the year, following an arrest this week in a March 29 assault that became a homicide when the victim died. A 67-year-old victim was allegedly assaulted over a month ago by 62-year-old Wayne Waddell of San Francisco, and as KPIX reports, the victim succumbed to injuries he received from the assault on April 30.
Violent crime is reportedly down in the Bay Area and across the country, however some bizarre and brutal violent crimes have continued to occur in and around San Francisco during the pandemic lockdown. As the Examiner notes, there have been 17 so far this year in SF, while at this time last year there had only been 12.
On Easter Sunday, April 13, a 29-year-old man was found naked and covered in blood outside a home on fire in the Mission District, and inside was the body of a 56-year-old female relative of the man. We've yet to learn any further details in that case.
Also on Easter Sunday, 35-year-old Justin Silvernale of Antioch was allegedly acting erratically and trying to carjack a vehicle at a South San Francisco Chevron station when he was confronted by an off-duty SFPD officer whom he allegedly stabbed, and who then shot him. He then engaged with arriving officers and stole one of their vehicles, and was then fatally shot in the parking lot of the Kaiser hospital in Daly City.
Silvernale has now been implicated in a homicide that may have occurred hours earlier in a home on San Francisco's Great Highway. The severed head of a man, identified by a private investigator as that of 41-year-old Catono R. Perez, was found in an apartment refrigerator last week after Perez had been missing for several weeks. San Mateo County authorities confirmed that Perez's identification and belongings were found on Silvernale.