Body camera footage released today shows Ryant Bluford, the man who police officers in the Bayview shot and killed last week, was agitated and attempting to stop an arrest before he pointed his gun at officers and was immediately killed.
The San Francisco Police Department, in a “town hall” meeting on Friday, showed the moments leading up to Bluford’s death on July 26. Bluford was apparently angry at the sight of officers attempting to arrest a man at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Catalina Street in the Bayview.
He approached the scene and lashed out at the officers, who were having difficulty arresting a man for an outstanding warrant.
“What the fuck are y’all doing? What the fuck are y’all doing in my neighborhood?” Bluford can be heard shouting in the footage shown today during a virtual meeting. “Uncuff him right now.”
Officers asked Bluford to back up and, shortly after, Bluford could be seen on video displaying a gun at his waist.
Plainclothes officers from the Community Violence Reduction Team — formerly the Gang Task Force — were in the middle of making the arrest. The man, who had been spending time with friends in a nearby apartment complex courtyard, insisted he had no warrant and refused to get into their car, though he allowed the officers to handcuff him. A woman who had been with him was making a call to his sister.
Around this time, Bluford approached and began demanding that the officers release the man. Shortly after, he flashed his gun and appeared to threaten the officers: “We finna go up,” he said. One officer ducked for cover, while others tried to disperse a growing crowd.
The plainclothes officers called for backup, and uniformed Bayview Station officers Marko Radin and Peter Van Zandt III arrived in a patrol vehicle within about 36 seconds, according to the timeline provided by the SFPD today.
By this time, Bluford had backed off the arrest scene and was on the other side of the intersection, yards away from the arrestee and plainclothes officers. Radin and Van Zandt could be heard on body-worn camera footage, repeatedly shouting for Bluford to put his hands up, and both threatened repeatedly to shoot him.
“Hands up, or I’ll shoot you in the head,” shouted Radin, who stood outside the police car with his rifle pointed over the car door.
“Get your fucking hands up! Get your fucking hands up!” began Van Zandt, who was armed with a handgun and similarly positioned near the driver’s seat. Then, he changed his tune: “Put your hands up please … Please put your hands up!”
About a minute later, Bluford apparently flipped off the officers with his left hand, and drew his gun with his right, pointing it at the officers. Both officers then shot their weapons, one minute and four seconds after their arrival.
Several shots can be heard, and Bluford falls to the ground. There was no indication in the video, or Friday’s meeting, that Bluford shot his gun.
Afterward, Van Zandt, Radin, and other Bayview police officers ran toward Bluford. Radin put his fingers to Bluford’s neck to check for a pulse, but apparently could not find one. Van Zandt then began chest compressions.
Both officers had crisis intervention training, which is meant to train them in de-escalation techniques and creating “time and distance” between themselves and a potentially violent issue.
Radin, who emigrated to the United States from Serbia in 2013, was listed as Bayview Station’s officer of the month in a 2021 newsletter. Van Zandt, records show, is a member of Police Activities League, a nonprofit that organizes youth sports and activities “to foster positive relationships” with police.
As a result of last week’s shooting, Bayview Station canceled its annual National Night Out event, where police at stations across the country host community members and emergency responders with the goal of strengthening their relationships.
Commenters, calling into the virtual meeting, asked why de-escalation measures were not used, or why crisis specialists didn’t arrive on the scene alongside — or instead of — more police.
One woman, who said she was Bluford’s family member, said she was disappointed by the language that the officers used when they arrived on the scene, from profanities to threats to shoot Bluford in the head.
“When you say to somebody, ‘I’m gonna shoot you in the head, I’m gonna shoot you in the head,’ you wanna kill ‘em,” she said.
Other commenters suggested that the police had no choice but to kill Bluford, since he was armed with a gun and pointed it at the officers.
The shooting is under investigation by various city agencies, including the Department of Police Accountability, the District Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and SFPD.
The Officers did you de-escalating techniques but they don’t always work. I noticed the deceased’s family member was harping on the language the officer used but they are o.k. with “What the fuck are y’all doing, what the fuck are y’all doing in my neighborhood?,” by the ex-con/rapist/dead-guy.
Yes, they expect police officers to be perfect in every situation. Forget they were just in an adrenal pumping situation, forget they are trying to get a second man to stand down, forget all of that, they must be perfect or else the community will find fault with every move, every word, every breath. I really get tired of it. Don’t do as I do, do as I say. UGH!
Bluford was convicted in the 2006 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in San Francisco, and spent more than a decade in prison as a result. He was again charged, in 2022, for domestic violence and sexual assault.
The people who claim foul in this have a really strong feeling on entitlement. De-escalate? Shoot him in the knees? Crisis managers? Assuming he was indeed mentally ill, do you know who should have been the first ones who should have prevented this man from being in this situation in the first place? The exact same family who is now crying this and that. NO ONE owes you anything. The world does not owe you ANYTHING. It was the family that should have made sure he was treated for his mental illness, and it is the family that should have made sure he did not have a gun since he was mentally ill. NO ONE else had that responsibility. The police did what they had to in that situation, he had a gun and he threatened them with violence. To saw why don’t you shoot him in the leg is total BS. The man was a clear danger to the officers and bystanders. Put yourself in that situation, a man screaming at you and threatening extreme violence. Would you not fear for your life, if you had a gun, would you not shoot? Granted the officers are trained people, but they are not bulletproof, they are not super heroes, they too are people with families and children. To put their lives in danger by trying to shoot the leg is ludicrous, you shoot to remove the danger, the bigger the danger the more extreme the response. If he had a baseball bat this would have been a totally different situation, but he had a gun. Imagine he was a suicide bomber with an explosive vest, can you still say shoot him in the leg? De-escalate first? Of course not. Once you pull out a gun at an officer or another person, all bets are off. You have to expect to be killed once you pull out a gun. That is why the family should have made sure he did not have one.
What about before the man pulled out the gun? He was clearly agitated. The police on the scene had a number of options prior to the man pulling a gun. Rather than increasing tensions with shouts and commands, they could have backed off, called for backup etc. Why not? What does de-escalation training say?
Did you watch the body cam video? They did try to de-escalate and called for back up immediately. I’m not sure what you mean by “back off,” but they were in the middle of conducting another arrest and had a man with an outstanding warrant in handcuffs. They could not have unhandcuffed him and left the scene like Bludford was demanding them to do, if that’s what you are suggesting.
Maybe you could better explain precisely how they should have handled the situation? Besides calling for back up, asking the armed man to leave, and trying to de-escalate the situation, as they did.
I walked up to a cop recently and told him that I don’t want to see him forced to hold a shield to protect himself like a Medieval warrior and to just shoot anyone brandishing a deadly weapon.
He thanked me for my comment.
This is just so sad all around, but not expected.
As a Bayview resident for 16 years, it is not hard to notice how those that make the decisions of where and how money is spent in this city continue to neglect the 94124. From the little things (we get sharp gravel as traffic island landscaping while the native plants with irrigation go to Glen Park) to basic public services (most of our parks don’t have any or adequate bathroom facilities, like the Silver Terrace Athletic Fields that has 1 (disgusting & poorly signed) bathroom STALL, yet the city rent$ out the fields to capacity for soccer leagues and youth sports clubs, attracting a few hundred people on the weekends) to life and death situations. The uniformed officers arrived in 36 seconds?!?! You can’t drive a few blocks without seeing a cop car around here, yet the city wanted to close the RV park at Candlestick that safely houses dozens of formerly homeless residents? And the botched Shipyard clean-up, where families have not been adequately compensated for living on top of unknown levels of contaminants! Where else in this city would such a thing happen without serious ramifications levied on those responsible? Well, perhaps Sunnydale/Viz Valley or the Western Addition/Filmore… Supe Walton: WTF?? Isn’t it time to piss some people off by calling out this BS and demanding that all neighborhoods are respected and celebrated despite their tax base? We are doing the best we can, but seems like we always get dealt a crappy hand.
One final note: officer Radin was Bayview Station’s “officer of the month” on the day of this shooting… and for the entire month of July, 2023.
Let’s be real: if a private group tried to invest in the neighborhood to make it a nicer place, it’d be called gentrification and opposed. The city funds to the neighborhood get eaten up by corrupt community organizations like United Council of Human Services.
The problem is the same “community leaders” and half-involved politicians like Walton (who apparently owns a primary residence in Vallejo) are mostly out to make money for themselves, and that doesn’t require the money go to bathrooms or native plants for traffic calming.
My nerves are killing me reading the above. Facts:. Capitalism was built on African slavery. The genetic framework of African Americans is bondage, suicide, sex breeding for Black, slave children. America owes African Americans big time, and not just monetary wise. I watched, listened to Town Hall. I got the sense the cops knew something was going to happen and they didn’t want it to be them. They should have done a better job of taking the suspect into custody.
It seemed like the arrest was going smoothly until Bluford arrived and began to brandish the gun. What do you feel they did wrong when taking the suspect with the outstanding warrant into custody?
I watched the police camera footage and this man was angry and deranged. The city of San Francisco is full of screaming lunatics like this guy, and until the city and state decided to do something about it, these issues will continue to happen. Making excuses for this type of behavior and shifting blame onto the police isn’t going to make your city any safer, nor will it bring back the businesses and tourists. California and San Francisco need to take a long hard look at the progressive policies that caused the chaos and problem your seeing grow year after year. Personally I blame democrat politicians who are more concerned with maintaining the party dogma than with the safety of law abiding citizens.
They are sissies, and bullies. They want to be robocop. It doesn’t matter what the individual did in the past, no one is judge, jury, and executioner. It’s for the panel of peers to decide not individuals. They could have used non-leathel means to subdue him.
He was pointing a gun at another human being and yelling maniacally at the moment he was shot…. That is the reason lethal force was used. It was not because of the times in the past when he raped, abused and sexually assaulted people.
So, when Connor Betts or Aiden Hale was indiscriminately gunning people down, the police should’ve taken their time to summon a “panel of peers to decide” what should happen to the gunman?
And pray do tell, what kind of “non-leathel [sic] means” would you be willing to use if I were aiming a gun at you?
It does not matter what this guy actually did in his past? But it matters that I’m white and some white people that I’m unrelated to, had some slaves 400 years ago? So I have to atone for those white people who have been dead for 300 years? But this with guy “It doesn’t matter what the individual did in the past”.
Why they couldn’t shoot him in the leg or arm or even the hand, if yu can aim at someone head and kill them yu can also disarm them, what ever happen to halt, now the police shoot to kill they have never once just shot someone it’s always a kill like they totally forgot about that training in the Academy.
Just by reading the first 4 words of your comment I could tell it was going to be ignorant, and man was I proven right.
1. Fix your grammar.
2. Why would they shoot him in the leg? He is holding a gun with his hand not his leg. If they shoot him in the arm guess what… he still has another arm to use and get the gun with, duh.
3. Trying to shoot someone in the hand no matter how good you are at shooting can increase the chances of stray bullets hitting something or an innocent bystander. Considering the hand is a smaller target than the upper body. The whole point of shooting someone aiming a gun at you is to eliminate the threat until there is no longer a threat. Maybe he shouldn’t have done what he did. It was incredibly ignorant to say the least.
Ryant was also convicted of rape, of a 16 year old girl during a gang rape back in 2006. Let’s say justice was served appropriately for that girl now 17 year later. Words of wisdom… “it’s better to let people think you’re ignorant then to open your mouth and prove them right”
You have absolutely no clue about the training in the academy, and yet here you are.