A 37-year-old insurance executive was shot and killed by a security guard last August. But a year later, no charges have been filed, the guard has skipped town, and the family is now suing the security company for damages.
There was not much media coverage when 37-year-old insurance executive Ryan Pincus was shot and killed in the Tenderloin on August 4, 2023, outside a hotel at Mason and Eddy streets. The Chronicle ran a brief piece about the fairly threadbare police report. The most coverage of this seemed to come from insurance industry trade publication Business Insurance, which noted Pincus was “a vice president of cyber underwriting for Allied World Insurance Co.,” and that outlet described it as “one of the most shocking industry stories of the past year.”
The case is getting more attention now, and we are learning that the alleged shooter was a security guard at a nearby hotel. The Chronicle reports that Pincus’s family is suing the security company that employed the guard, Universal Protection Service, which was doing business as Allied Universal Security Services.
The family has pieced through receipts, interviews, and security video to get a sense of what happened. Per the Chronicle, Pincus had attended a Giants game that day, and then dined with friends at House of Prime Rib. He grabbed some Indian food at a restaurant near Mason and Eddy streets around midnight, where the altercation with the security guard took place. That three-and-a-half-minute altercation ended in Pincus being fatally shot.
“We cannot live in a world where security guards shoot and kill unsuspecting passersby,” the family’s attorney Blair Kittle says in a release. “Companies that equip, train, supervise and manage security guards should be held to the highest standards of safety and accountability. As alleged in the complaint, if Allied Universal had not acted negligently, Ryan would still be alive. The Pincus Family hopes that their actions today will serve to highlight the lack of gun safety protocols employed by the company involved so that this will not happen to others."
The security guard has not been charged, so media outlets are declining to name him. SFPD tells the Chronicle that the investigation is “open and active,” but the Chronicle reports “the lawsuit identifies a shooter who Pincus’ family members say has been on the run for 13 months.”
We don’t know which hotel the security guard worked for, and that Mason and Eddy street intersection has four hotels of, umm, varying quality. The attorney’s press release says that Pincus was shot “in front of the Hotel Bijou,” though it’s unclear whether the guard worked at that hotel. Pincus was not staying at the Hotel Bijou; he was staying at the Marriott Marquis at Fourth and Mission streets.
Per the Chronicle, Pincus’s family is suing for “general and compensatory damages, payment for future economic loss, and more abstract forms of restitution.” That amount would be determined in a civil trial, should the verdict go against the security company.
Related: SF Supervisors Pass Ban on Security Guards Drawing Their Guns Over Property Crimes [SFist]
Image via Kevin Y. via Yelp
