The victim in the fatal shooting Sunday morning in San Francisco's Outer Sunset has been identified as a well known local character who had reportedly turned his life around after being released from prison.

We initially had very few details about the early morning shooting on Sunday, which happened on the 2500 block of 46th Avenue near Ulloa Street around 5:20 am, a few hours ahead of the Bay to Breakers race.

The victim, as we now know from Mission Local and KTVU, was 58-year-old Eric Paul Bigone, a longtime resident of the Sunset District and, as one friend called him, a "neighborhood icon."

Bigone had apparently been associated in his youth with a group known as SDI — either "Sunset District Irish" or "Sunset District Incorporated" depending on who you ask. As SF Weekly characterized them in 2004, "SDI was a loose affiliation of neighborhood kids who came from good families, who went to good Catholic schools, who liked to party, and who loved to defend the honor of the neighborhood with their fists."

Some viewed them as a kind of gang that harassed people of color who came to Ocean Beach, as Mission Local notes, but they "largely managed to avoid the attention police focused on gangs in other neighborhoods."

Bigone was a local boxing enthusiast and part of a band called Whiskey Business. And he appears to have been a hard-partying dude into his 30s, when he got arrested in Lake County in 2004 after driving head-on into another vehicle on Highway 29 — and witnesses said he had been seen with a joint and a bottle of Wild Turkey just before the crash.

He was convicted of vehicular manslaugher, and served a possibly significant amount of prison time — it's unclear when he was released, but the description by friends' of how he'd been on the straight and narrow makes it sound somewhat recent. Most recently, Bigone had been working for the city as a general laborer, as Mission Local reports, and his city-issued, high-visibility work vest was displayed on the front gate of his home as part of a makeshift memorial. In the windows of his home were also American and Irish flags.

No arrest has been made in the case, and police have not discussed any possible motive for the shooting. Bigone was shot outside his home by a man who approached on a bicycle, in a beanie and mask, who produced a long gun, as seen in surveillance images released by police.

Officer Robert Rueca, public information officer for the SFPD, said in a statement to KTVU, "We are searching for the suspect and are scouring the neighborhood for evidence as well as any eyewitness statements anyone can provide."

Friends have been pouring out their grief on social media, with one saying, "I cant believe this is how he went down. Eric was no angel when we were young but he more than paid his dues throughout his life. He managed to turn his life around, put the hard work in to change, why this is doubly so sad to hear about."

This remains an open and active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD tip line at 415-575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Top image of Bigone with his son via Facebook