Mission District Shootings 2012: Wave Of Gun Violence Hits 24th Street Corridor

Series Of Shootings In Broad Daylight Rattle Mission District Residents

A shocking broad daylight shooting in the Mission district earlier this week was the latest in a wave of what police believe to be gang violence.

In just the last month alone, there have been four shootings within a three block radius along the 24th Street corridor.

The most recent incident occurred on Monday, July 23, when a masked gunman opened fire near the intersection of 24th and Harrison streets in front of the entrance to a neighborhood pre-school. Thankfully, in this case no one was hit.

But two people were injured, one fatally so, in previous shootings.

The overall number of shootings in the district isn't on pace to be significantly higher than in previous years, although their brazen nature and dense geographic proximity is giving police cause for concern.

"Obviously four shootings in 30 days is indicative that something is either stirring within the Nortenos or Surenos or another rival gang is coming into the neighborhood," Police Chief Greg Suhr told Mission Local.

In 2007, City Attorney Dennis Herrera obtained a gang injunction against the Nortenos preventing any known gang members from congregating, flashing gang signs or wearing gang colors within a safety zone that includes the area where many of the past month's string of shootings have taken place.

More recently, San Francisco Mayor Ed has been exploring the option of implementing a stop-and-frisk program similar the ones in place in New York and Philadelphia.

"The month of June in San Francisco experienced a spike in shootings and homicides in our southeast neighborhoods," Lee said in a statement released last week. "This is unacceptable and while I take this issue extremely seriously, I want to be clear that I have not considered implementing a policy in San Francisco that would violate anyone's constitutional rights or that would result in racial profiling. I have stated that I am willing to look at what other cities are doing to reduce gun violence, including cities like New York and Philadelphia that both have stop and frisk programs."

Lee's proposal to curtail the recent spike in gun violence in both the Mission and Bayview neighborhoods with stop-and-frisk has been met with sharp criticism.

Earlier this month, protestors gathered on the steps of City Hall to drop off a 2,000-signature petition against the idea.

"This pushback from the community is begging a difference that the mayor who has come out of a civil rights background can still live up to that by withdrawing this stop-and-frisk idea here in San Francisco," Supervisor John Avalos told CBS San Francisco.

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