A routine shoplifting call in San Francisco turned into one of the more chaotic scenes the city has seen in a while, and it all happened before 8 in the morning. Two SFPD officers responded to a Trader Joe’s in the Nob Hill neighborhood on Friday after a store employee flagged them down over a suspected theft. What should have been a straightforward detainment turned into a foot chase, a violent street-level struggle, and ultimately a collision that left both officers injured and one pinned beneath a moving vehicle.
The incident unfolded at the corner of California and Hyde streets just after 7:36 a.m. The suspect refused to cooperate, broke free, and bolted into the street with both officers in pursuit. A gray Lexus traveling east on California then struck all three, with one officer ending up trapped beneath the front bumper of the vehicle. Firefighters arrived within minutes and worked alongside police to physically pull the officer out from under the car while paramedics treated everyone at the scene.
Both officers were transported to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with leg injuries that are expected to be non-life-threatening. The suspect was not as fortunate. He was taken to the hospital as well, but succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. The Lexus driver, who had no apparent connection to the Trader Joe’s situation, remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators. To add an odd footnote to an already strange morning, the chaos apparently started with a report of a white Tesla on fire in the Trader Joe’s parking lot around the same time…