Man receives federal prison sentence for gun possession
A San Francisco resident who lost his brother, son, and wife in a series of tragic incidents has been sentenced to federal prison for 41 months, despite having been acquitted in January of possessing the bullet that killed his wife, court records show.
The story of 44-yearold Omar Pope dates back to last year when federal prosecutors charged him with two felony counts: Being a felon in possession of a loaded gun in May 2022 and possessing the bullet that killed his wife in December 2021 as the couple struggled over a pistol inside their home.
Pope made the unusual move of pleading guilty to the May possession charge and taking the second count to trial. Last January, a jury acquitted him of being a felon in possession of ammunition, but that left Pope still facing a federal prison term for the gun case.
Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup sentenced Pope to 41 months in federal prison with credit for time he spent in jail since his June arrest.
According to court records, Pope's arrest was the culmination of a series of tragedies that started in mid-2020 when his brother died of COVID-19. Two months later, in August 2020, his 14-year-old son was killed after a car being driven by a relative rear-ended a truck, according to court records. Then in December 2021, Pope's 40-year-old wife was shot and killed inside a home on the 100 block of Dakota Street in San Francisco.
Pope would tell responding officers that his wife — still distraught over their son's death — pointed the gun at herself and at Pope multiple times and threatened to kill them both and other family members. He said that when he tried to take the gun from her, they struggled over it and it went off. One round fatally struck her and another hit Pope in the hand, according to court records.
Five months later, in May 2022, Pope was caught with a gun that had been stolen in Hayward, prosecutors said. The U.S. Attorney's office asked for a 57-month sentence, arguing the series of tragedies in Pope's life should have been a wakeup call and made his subsequent gun possession even worse.
“Not numerous criminal convictions. Not significant prison time. Not his wife's gunshot death. Not his own gunshot injury. Not the pain and suffering his daughter must have experienced losing her mother. None of that discouraged Pope from possessing a stolen firearm in May 2022,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.
Pope's lawyer, Daniel Blank, argued that the tragedies were devastating to Pope, but pointed out that he accepted responsibility for the May 2022 gun possession months before he went on trial for the other charge. Blank said in court records that Pope felt the need to carry a gun for selfprotection after surviving the harrowing experience of his wife's death.
“It was these recent devastating losses, on top of many prior ones, that caused Mr. Pope to descend into drug addiction, fueling a paranoia that made him feel like he needed to have a firearm for his own protection,” Bank wrote.
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