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San Francisco police shooting: Note said it was suicide by cop

Case of suicide by cop

In what surely is a classic case of “suicide by cop” the man went into a restricted parking area of the Mission District police station at about 5 p.m. Sunday. There are signs posted that the public is to stay out of that area but it is not blocked.

The SFGate.com website identified the man as Matthew Hoffman, a 32-year-old white male. He entered the restricted area and stood in such a place that he was preventing three San Francisco police sergeants from leaving.

When they approached him the man pulled up his sweater to reveal he had what appeared to be a gun sticking from his waistband. The officers withdrew their firearms. The man pulled the “gun” from his waistband and as he did was shot three times, with two of the officers firing. He was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital where he died a few hours later.

The gun turned out to be a replica gun, an airsoft pellet or a BB gun, illegal to carry in San Francisco. It seems similar to the gun 12-year-old Tamir Rice had in Cleveland when shot dead by an officer in November. In each case the gun did not have the orange tag it comes with, but in San Francisco it is illegal whether it has the tag or not. In the case of Rice, he was playing with the gun, not intending to confront police with it.

Initially, police said they were unable to understand why Hoffman did as he did. “We don’t know his motive or why he challenged the officers or approached them in the first place,” Abe Esparza of the police told KPIX-TV. “It was very erratic behavior by the suspect, very unusual.”

The same man, police said, had been there earlier in the day asking officers about the type of weapons they used and whether they had ever been involved in a shooting.

Letter addressed to police

By Monday it was discovered Hoffman had left suicide letters on his cell phone. The father of the man gave permission, they said, for them to release details of a letter to the public.

The letter started with ‘Dear Officers’ and then said they “had no choice” but to shoot him as they did. “Please, don’t blame yourself,” the letter continued. “I used you. I took advantage of you. Please, take solace in knowing that the situation was out of your control. You had no other choice.”

The letter also said: “You did nothing wrong. You ended the life of a man who was too much of a coward to do it himself. I provoked you. I threatened your life as well as the lives of those around me.”

By way of an explanation for his actions he wrote about how difficult he was finding life and, in a heartrending passage, how he felt his life was not meant to be. “I just want to find peace within myself,” he wrote. “I am so sad and I am so lonely. There is no place for me here. I am so lost and I am so hopeless. God made a mistake with me. I shouldn’t be here.”

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said they will hold a town hall meeting to detail what happened and for the public to express their feelings about the shooting.

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