Gunfire Smashes Windows at Precita Park Cafe

/ Todd_Lappin

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Ugh. Neighbor Daniel reports that three of the front windows at the Precita Park Cafe were smashed overnight. Police are on the scene this morning.

Some neighbors said they heard gunfire at approximately 4:30 am, and it would appear that this is how the windows were damaged. A bullet hole was still visible in at least one of the damaged windows.

Bernalwood will provide updates as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: Neighbor Alex shares additional photos from the scene. He suspects it was a drive-by that targeted the windows.

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He also recovered a slug from the scene:

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Mat shared a photo of a bullet still lodged in the wall:

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PHOTOS: Neighbor Daniel, Neighbor Miles, Neighbor Alex, @MatDunlap.

24 thoughts on “Gunfire Smashes Windows at Precita Park Cafe”

  1. Blame tech gentrification on this one too? Its time for more cleanup of our neighborhood and get these scumbag thugs out. That also means no hobos!

  2. Four shots in fairly quick succession, then silence. Unfortunately not an altogether unusual thing to hear … We waited to hear sirens, but then I guess all of us were thinking, surely, someone else would call it in.

  3. Oh it was gunfire-better than an alarm clock 🙂 Like the Bernal of old.
    My son, who is a native Bernal/Mission kid, says it was a 9mm (he’s heard enough gunfire to be an expert I guess 😦

  5. There has certainly been an increase in thuggish activity in our neighborhood; car break ins (possibly related to homelessness, but not necessarily) car thefts, cars spinning donuts at intersections, gunfire in the Precita Park area, tagging (always a problem). I wonder if this is happening in other city neighborhoods?

  7. From Treat and Precita, I heard six shots at 4:37am, and then a siren at 4:43am. I was already awake because the cat decided to throw up in the bedroom just before then 😛

    It sounded louder than shots usually sound (like the ones from last week on Chavez and Treat, though that was pistol shots and two shotgun blasts), so I thought it must be in the park somewhere. Glad no one was hit, too bad about the cafe windows though.

  8. ‘d say it was probably a knee jerk reaction to a combination of factors. Probably related to gentrification, an ever decreasing territory for gangs (Norteño’s, Sureño’s), a general hate of prosperity, peace, goodwill, families, commercial success and change in general. This kind of thing is cowardly (shooting from a car and speeding off) and also; EXTREMELY dangerous. I’ve seen incidents like this where the bullet has penetrated a home and killed the occupant. The only way to combat this kind of behavior is to be aware and to report and and ALL suspicious activities. Also, video surveillance helps a lot, these guys don’t like their photo being taken and more often than not, are dumb enough not to realize it’s happening.

  9. A lot of times it comes down to X factor criminals and/or gang members getting out of prison or jail. They go back to old stomping grounds and rile stuff up. I wonder if that’s what’s been going on in the south Mission lately.

  10. For those who don’t know, Bernal Heights has been notorious as a gang-infested territory for generations. It’s only the last 10-15 years that things have been different. I remember walking along Cortland and seeing burglar bars on most of the shop windows. And the laundry had a vertical bar in the doorway to keep people from stealing the clothes baskets.

    Well, Bernal is a mix of old-style and new-style. Hard as it may be to believe, there are numerous gang family members who own homes in South Bernal. Gang activity is not going to just go away when there have been generations of it in Bernal.

  11. Any word from our esteemed representative on the Bd of Supes about the uptick in violence in his district? There are several shootings now in the last week.

  12. NSFW, neither you nor the chief has any evidence that Prop 47 has much if anything to do with this. Property crime is not up in San Diego or Fresno, and other places where it would presumably have the same effect. And it is up in other places across the country where Prop 47 has no effect. I’ll tell you what I don’t see: police out of their cars walking on Cortland or 24th or near Precita (or anywhere).

    • There’s the classic quote that when career bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s there the money is.” Well, today the money is in Bernal Heights; it’s not in San Diego, and certainly not in Fresno. So, obviously the career criminals are going to go where the money is. Look at the surveillance cameras. How slick is the burglary? If it’s slick, they’re career criminals, not usually the one-hit wonders such as the local crackheads who simply don’t have it together enough to burglarize and not get caught.

      I agree with you 100%; instead of funding new technology, the SFPD should be spending that money on foot patrols. Say, the SFPD is inclined to spent $2 million on a fingerprint matching system. What would that get? It would get more convictions resulting in the taxpayers spending money to put people in prison. Wouldn’t we be better served to take that $2 million to hire 20 more officers specifically for beat walking? They stop the crime BEFORE it happens and there are far fewer people being put through the system at our expense.

      • @David, I completely agree with you about the foot patrols, not because they’d stop crime before it happens, but because they’d build relationships with the community. They’d be having 1 on 1 conversations with their neighbors and getting to know people on a (somewhat) personal level. That relationship building is worth more than any multi-million dollar fingerprint system they could purchase.

        On a side note, you probably shouldn’t use Fresno as an example. The crime rate in Fresno is nearly 10% higher than San Francisco. Fresno, while not as rich of a city as San Francisco, has a large population of wealthy individual and a larger population of economically challenged individuals. That disparity has resulted in a very high property crime rate.

  13. Pingback: Video Shows Drive-By Shooter Shattering Windows at Precita Park Cafe | Bernalwood

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