San Francisco police release photo of alleged subway shooter
SAN FRANCISCO — Police in San Francisco were searching Thursday for a man who shot and killed one person and wounded another inside a subway train and then fled when the train stopped in the Castro District, the city’s historically LGBTQ neighborhood.
San Francisco police late Wednesday released a still photo from surveillance video of a man they described as a person of interest and asked anyone with information to contact authorities.
The man, who hasn’t been identified, is thought to be the person who shot a 27-year-old man to death and wounded a 70-year-old man as the train departed the Forest Hill station, police said.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner on Thursday identified the victim who died as Nesta Bowen. The office said it did not know where Bowen lived.
The person wounded by gunfire was a bystander who was taken to a hospital with an injured knee, said San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose district includes the Forest Hill neighborhood.
She said witnesses reported three or four shots and a “heated verbal argument” between the suspect and Bowen. She said the suspect ran out with other passengers when the train stopped.
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro District, said the victim and suspect appeared to know each other.
“It’s cold comfort, but it does not appear that this was random,” he said. “It was not someone who, you know, got on the train and just started shooting, which would have been even more horrible. This was horrible enough.”
While authorities said the shooting was not connected to upcoming Pride events, the death cast a glum start to the celebrations when members of the LGBTQ community are experiencing heightened threats,