By Jordan Parker
Source San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco police opened fire and killed a suspect last week who appeared to shoot at them from an apartment just hours after he allegedly shot the owner of a popular cannabis dispensary in the South of Market neighborhood, video footage of the incident released Tuesday showed.
In the video, officers had positioned themselves on the roof of the apartment building Jan. 27 and began firing foam batons toward the apartment where the man was barricaded. Suddenly, shots rang out as the man, identified as Cheasarack Chong, 34, then appeared to fire his gun at officers.
"Did he shoot?" an officer asked. "Yeah," one responded, followed by "Shots fired!" from another officer. The police then spotted Chong and opened fire.
The shooting happened at approximately 9:24 p.m. Officers and medics entered the apartment at about 10 p.m. and pronounced Chong dead at the scene, police said.
Chong, of San Francisco, had allegedly shot and injured Vapor Room dispensary owner Martin Olive last week while he was standing outside of the business, located at 79 9th St. Chong engaged in an hours-long standoff with officers before the fatal shooting. Olive was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries following the encounter.
At a town hall Tuesday, police said officers responded to the scene after the shooting to find a witness who told police they saw a man standing over another after he had fired several shots at him. Olive told police at the scene that he was standing on the sidewalk near his store when a man approached him, pointed a gun at him, and shot him.
Video footage showed a man riding a bike up to the curb near where another man was standing on the sidewalk and parking the bike against the curb. He walked toward the man, who had his back turned while appearing to be using his phone, raised what appeared to be a gun and shot him.
As the man continued to shoot, the victim moved his hands into a defensive position and fell to the ground, the footage showed.
The alleged shooter, who police identified as Chong, fled the scene after the shooting and barricaded himself inside his apartment unit on the 6th floor of a building at 81 9th St., police said. Crisis negotiators tried to communicate with Chong for hours but he was noncompliant, police said. Officers from the department's tactical unit made announcements to Chong and warned him force would be used, but Chong still refused to comply with the orders, according to police.
The officer who shot Chong was identified by police as David Edgerson, an SFPD tactical unit officer. Police Chief Bill Scott said the incident remains under investigation by multiple agencies, including the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.
Kevin Knoble, the commanding officer of SFPD's Tenderloin station, said at the town hall the shooting was an isolated incident.
Police still have not said what they believe was Chong's motive in allegedly shooting Olive.
Chong was acquitted of attempted murder charges seven years ago after he stabbed a person who attacked him in the Tenderloin neighborhood in July 2018.
The status of Olive's recovery was not immediately clear. A friend, Jason Grace, said on GoFundMe on Jan. 29 that Olive would likely remain in the hospital "for another week or longer."
"Despite severe injuries—wounds on his face and earlobe, swelling, stitched up all over, and blood drainage—he remains in good spirits, even earning a reputation as the hospital's most popular patient," Grace wrote.
The Vapor Room opened in 2004, eight years after voters passed Proposition 215 that allowed Californians access to cannabis for medical purposes, according to the company's website. The dispensary now operates as a recreational use dispensary. " Vapor Room was also the first dispensary to offer an on-site smoker's lounge which quickly grew into a unique culture of its own," the company's website said.
In recent months, Olive took to LinkedIn to express the Vapor Room's financial struggles. He said in a post late last year, "We're at a crunch point now where things are looking more dire than they've ever been. ... I've been doing my best and well, it just might not be good enough." Olive said the company was searching for solutions such as credit lines or investors.
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