At a San Francisco town-hall meeting Friday, the SFPD released the body-camera and surveillance videos of last Friday’s fatal police shooting of a burglary suspect, as well as released the identities of both the suspect and the officer who shot him.
SFPD named the burglary suspect as 40-year-old Sergio Barrios, who was a San Francisco resident, according to the Chronicle.The SFPD officer who fired his rifle at Barrios was identified as 22-year department veteran Gregory Buhagiar, who’s also been involved in two other shootings in 2007 and 2018. Reportedly, 2007’s shooting was fatal.
At the town hall, SFPD Chief Bill Scott said that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is set to conduct an investigation into the “legality of the shooting.” This sets up another potential political battle over Jenkins’ choice — or more specifically, lack thereof — to hold a law enforcement officers responsible for a fatal shooting.
Her office has recently declined to press charges against the security guard who fatally shot Banko Brown, and also dismissed the (unrelated) charges that former DA Chesa Boudin had brought against the SFPD officers who shot Keita O’Neil and Jamaica Hampton.
The California Department of Justice already declined to investigate the shooting.
We reported some of the contents of the video of Barrios’ fatal shooting at the time, but the video shows the three-hour-long standoff in which Barrios puts in headphones, drinks wine and vodka, and snorts a white substance out of a one-dollar bill.
UPDATE: Body-cam & surveillance videos released in deadly shooting of burglary suspect Sergio Barrios, 40, near Bosworth & Cuvier by @SFPD Ofc. Gregory Buhagiar, who has been involved in 2 prior shootings. 5,6,7 p.m. @KTVU pic.twitter.com/cGqeU8EMbc
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) May 26, 2023
According to the Chronicle, they played multiple voice messages from an apparently close family member of Barrios. Hostage negotiators also reportedly spoke in Spanish to Barrios to ask him to exit the building — but at one point, when a negotiator told Barrios his family was there and worried, Barrios responded, “My family? What family?”
As the hours passed, Barrios eventually tried to pick up the keys and gun from the ground, the footage shows. At that point, several officers responded, three with non-lethal weapons and Buhagiar with a rifle.
Despite emergency aid rendered, Barrios was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Image of virtual town hall via SFPD.
