Neighbors furious over fatal police shooting in Mission

David Santos with Stop Mass Encarcerations Network speaks out before a police town hall meeting on Monday, March 2, 2015, in San Francisco, Calif., to address the officer-involved shooting of Amilcar Perez-Lopez, who was killed the previous Thursday. less David Santos with Stop Mass Encarcerations Network speaks out before a police town hall meeting on Monday, March 2, 2015, in San Francisco, Calif., to address the officer-involved shooting of Amilcar ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Neighbors furious over fatal police shooting in Mission 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

A man fatally shot by police in San Francisco’s Mission District last week was not a knife-wielding robbery suspect, his friends and neighbors said Monday, but a hardworking Guatemalan immigrant who was trying to get his cell phone back from the man police said he was trying to rob.

Neighbors provided a conflicting version of the shooting that killed Amilcar Perez-Lopez, 21, as San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr stood by the police account that Perez-Lopez was armed and trying to steal a bicycle from another man when two plainclothes officers encountered him at 24th and Folsom streets about 9:45 p.m. Thursday.

“Lies! Those are lies!” community members shouted at the chief as he tried to speak at a town hall meeting at Cesar Chavez Elementary School.

An hour before the meeting, neighbors and friends of Perez-Lopez gathered in front of the school to relay the details that they had collected.

Neighbors Bill Simpich and Florencia Rojo had been speaking to witnesses and friends since Thursday’s shooting.

“None of the witnesses interviewed to date support the police claim that Amilcar ever threatened to steal the bicyclist’s bike,” Simpich said.

The neighbors said they learned Perez-Lopez and the man police said was the attempted robbery victim knew each other.

The alleged victim had been antagonizing Perez-Lopez and his roommates, Simpich said, because he knew they were facing eviction from their home at 24th and Folsom streets. The man had borrowed Perez-Lopez’s phone earlier that night but refused to give it back and wouldn’t let him back in his home, Simpich said.

Perez-Lopez grabbed a knife to threaten the man and force him to give back his phone, Simpich said, and chased him down 24th Street. Witnesses then told Simpich that they saw Perez-Lopez walking from 25th Street to 24th, and two plainclothes officers coming up behind him.

Photo: Google Maps Amilcar Perez-Lopez was shot dead by two San Francisco plainclothes...

Simpich said the two men never identified themselves as police officers, and Perez-Lopez had dropped the knife before they began firing at him.

Witnesses said they saw the alleged robbery victim handcuffed on the sidewalk after the shooting, leading them to believe that he, too, was a suspect before police called him a victim. Police said he was only briefly handcuffed before being released. Mission Station Capt. Daniel Perea said he thanked him and said the officers saved his life.

At the meeting, Suhr said the confrontation began when police received a call about a man with a knife chasing a second man. When the two plainclothes officers got close to Perez-Lopez, he slashed the knife at an officer.

The two officers shot Perez-Lopez when he charged at them with the knife raised, Suhr said.

“What does a cover-up look like? This is what a cover-up looks like!” the community members chanted at the chief.

“Another one,” shouted a fifth-grade student whose mother asked not to be identified. “Another one. You’re supposed to protect the people, but what are you doing? You’re doing the opposite. You’re murdering the people. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.”

The shooting came almost a year after Alex Nieto, a longtime Mission District resident and community organizer, was shot and killed on Bernal Hill. Community members have long disputed the police account of that shooting, and many said they saw the two shootings as part of a nationwide trend of police shooting men of color with little justification.

“Just in L.A. yesterday, they caught on camera the killing of a homeless man. We’ve seen the cases of Eric Garner, Mike Brown,” the Answer Coalition’s Frank Lara said before the meeting. “All throughout the city, all throughout the state and the Bay Area, all throughout the country, we’re just seeing killing upon killing with police impunity. They never get charged.”

During the meeting, a woman brought up that the day after Perez-Lopez was shot and killed, police were able to talk down an armed and barricaded woman who had hurt a man before threatening to harm herself.

“I don’t understand why that female is still alive getting help, while Amilcar, Alex and O’Shaine are dead,” she said.

O’Shaine Evans was shot and killed by San Francisco police near AT&T Park in October.

Fernando Quinonez, a friend of Perez-Lopez’s, said he was a humble, hardworking man who worked nonstop to provide for his family in Guatemala. He said there was no way he was trying to steal a bicycle.

“When I heard about it, that he was trying to steal a bike, I knew that was a lie,” he said. “He’s not the kind of person that would do that. He’s a really hardworking guy who would go from his job to his house.”

Thursday’s shooting is under investigation by police and the district attorney’s office. Suhr said the names of the officers involved will be released by Friday.

Chronicle staff writer Henry K. Lee contributed to this report.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo