A federal judge sentenced Johnny Jameson to 27 months in prison for illegally possessing ammunition, closing out a case that grew out of the December 23, 2024 shooting death of Patrick “Project” Riley and Riley’s dog Cookie on Selby Street in Bayview. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston handed down the sentence, rejecting a federal prosecutor’s request for 33 months. Jameson was never charged for the shooting itself in San Francisco County, but the ammunition tied to his DNA became the basis for the federal case against him.
According to The Mercury News, court records say Jameson used the ammunition to kill Riley and Cookie. Jameson’s defense told a different story of what happened between the two men before shots were fired. According to a defense sentencing memo cited by the Mercury News, Jameson and Riley had been seen talking in a parked car and spent about an hour together without any problems before things escalated. The memo states that one of Riley’s dogs bit Jameson in the leg, and Jameson’s lawyers argued that Riley then brandished a rifle, prompting Jameson to fire his own gun in what they characterized as self-defense.
Riley, 44, had been living in an RV on Selby Street near Evans Avenue with his partner, Amelia Mustain, according to photographer Robert Gumpert’s documentation of unhoused San Franciscans, part of his long-running Say Their Name project. Riley had relocated to that stretch of Selby Street after a Jerrold Street RV encampment was closed in early 2022, per Gumpert’s account. San Francisco police opened a homicide investigation under Case #240787296 after officers responded at 3:05 PM on December 23, 2024, to reports of a shooting at Selby and Toland streets; officers rendered aid before paramedics took Riley to a hospital, where he died, according to Gumpert’s reporting drawn from the police response.
DNA in an Abandoned Getaway Car
Jameson fled the scene in a Honda that broke down less than a mile away, where police seized a box of ammunition containing his DNA, according to the same defense-side account referenced by the Mercury News in its sentencing coverage. In July 2025, San Francisco prosecutors filed separate local charges against Jameson for unlawful possession of ammunition tied to the case, even as federal prosecutors pursued their own ammunition charge, according to San Francisco News. That dual-track approach — local charges evaluated alongside a federal prosecution — reflects how the two systems moved on parallel paths after the shooting…