A mid-November fatal stabbing on Market Street outside the Embarcadero BART station will not be charged as a murder, as DA Brooke Jenkins says her office cannot prove the suspect wasn’t acting in self-defense.
Sometime around 5:45 am on Wednesday, November 13, SFPD responded to a fatal stabbing at Market and Main streets, outside the Embarcadero BART station, where the suspect escaped and was not immediately found. Then nearly two weeks later, BART Police arrested someone for fare evasion, and that person turned out to be the suspect in this stabbing, 36-year-old Jonathon Wright.
But now KPIX reports that San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’s office will not be charging Wright with murder. That decision came Monday, as the DA’s office does not feel they can prove Wright wasn't acting in self-defense.
“We are unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was not acting in self-defense,” Jenkins’s office said in a statement. “It is always our goal to prosecute cases ethically, fairly and impartially.”
A Tuesday morning check of SF County Jail records shows that Wright is no longer in custody, and is presumably now a free man.
The victim in the fatal stabbing still has not been named publicly.
Though as KPIX notes, it is still possible that the DA’s office could bring charges against Wright in the future, should other evidence surface.
Related: Man Found Fatally Stabbed Near Embarcadero BART Station [SFist]
Image: Google Street View
