SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has decided not to file charges against a drug store security guard who shot and killed a suspected shoplifter.
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Friends of the transgender man — who was accused of shoplifting at a Walgreens in the Tenderloin — are outraged.
San Francisco police arrested the guard, 33-year-old Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, on suspicion of murder last Thursday after he fired a single shot at Banko Brown, killing the 24-year-old.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott told the San Francisco Standard that Anthony was arrested because of the way he allegedly used his weapon. "You have to use force appropriately within the law," Scott said.
But on Monday, DA Jenkins revealed that she had declined to file murder charges.
"After careful review, we are not pursuing murder charges at this time because of credible evidence of reasonable self-defense," she wrote in a statement.
"This was a shoplifting that really based on the facts...escalated into a robbery and the armed security guard did ultimately end up using lethal force by firing one shot from his firearm that ultimately killed Banko Brown," she told KPIX 5.
Friends of Brown are stunned by the events.
"This was a senseless death," said Xavier Davenport, Brown's mentor.
Davenport added that shoplifting is a common occurrence at the Tenderloin drugstore.
"A bunch of people steal from this Walgreens every single day. Why this Black young boy had to be taken away from something so senseless that everybody in this community and everybody around San Francisco does?" He asked.
The same day Anthony was released from jail, friends and family of Brown held a rally in San Francisco. Brown was described as a community activist and a leader.
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