Man shot to death after he gets out on the wrong floor

Stephen Guillermo Stephen Guillermo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Man shot to death after he gets out on the wrong floor 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A 26-year-old San Francisco man was shot to death early Saturday when he went to a unit on the wrong floor of his apartment building after returning home from a night out.

Stephen Guillermo had been out drinking with friends, his family said, and apparently pressed the wrong floor number on the elevator of the building in the 900 block of Mission Street in the South of Market area. He got off on the third floor instead of the fifth floor, where he lived with his brother and sister, and went to the unit in the same location in the building as his home two stories above.

Guillermo was shot at 1:40 a.m. inside the third floor unit of a 68-year-old man, Amisi Sudi Kachepa, who later surrendered to police and was arrested in the shooting.

Kachepa reportedly told people in the building that he blamed Guillermo for breaking the knob on the door of his unit. The knob on the door was missing Saturday.

Guillermo's brother, Marc, who lives on the fifth floor with his brother, said he could not understand what happened.

He said Stephen was studying international business at San Francisco State University, worked both driving for Lyft and selling Puma athletic shoes, and hoped to join the U.S. Foreign Service.

"He's not aggressive or violent," Marc Guillermo said Saturday. "He's a quiet person."

"It just doesn't fit," said his sister, Sharrmaine Guillermo, adding that her brother did not become hostile when he drank, and she cannot figure out how he would even start some sort of confrontation. "Stephen is not the kind of guy who would do that."

Stephen would talk through any confrontation and would not be combative. "We're all confused, we just can't understand how it could have happened," she added.

"He was such a gentle, quiet guy - he's just not the type that would be violent or inspire that type of response," said his cousin, Emil Guillermo.