SandyMaloneSan Francisco, CA – Outraged protesters marched in the Mission District of San Francisco on Wednesday to protest the shooting of an illegal immigrant who shot at police (video below.)
Jesus Adolfo Delgado, 19, was fatally shot after opening fire on San Francisco police on Tuesday night, and officers returned fire.
The incident started when officers were flagged down by two robbery victims at about 10:36 pm on March 6.
Police said the victims gave officers a description of the armed suspects, and said they were driving a black Honda Civic, Mission Local reported.
Police located the suspect’s vehicle shortly thereafter near 21st and Capp Streets, and performed a felony stop of the vehicle.
Officers ordered the driver out of the car, and took him into custody. Then they noticed something off about the car’s trunk, Mission Local reported.
“The officers noticed the vehicle’s trunk ajar and saw a second suspect in the trunk,” the police wrote in a statement. “While attempting to detain the second suspect, an officer-involved shooting occurred.”
A cellphone video of the incident showed a black Honda, with its trunk ajar. A police officer can be heard giving instructions to Delgado in Spanish to put his hands up.
In the video, a hand holding a gun reached out of the trunk and opened fire at police.
Police returned fire with a volley of shots that lasted about five seconds, the video showed.
Delgado died at the scene, and police recovered a handgun in the trunk of the Honda, The San Francisco Examiner reported.
Protesters didn’t care that that Delgado was shooting at police at the time he was killed. The protesters marched through the neighborhood where he was shot holding “Justice for Adolfo Delgado” signs and chanting about “racist police.”
“If he had a gun or not, they still should have not shot him 30 times. Once or twice is still bad, but I would have rather them shot him once or twice than 30 times,” Rocio Navarro told KGO-TV.
Several of his friends said that they believed Delgado, who entered the United States illegally from Mexico, was hiding in the trunk of the car because he feared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Susana Rojas told KGO she doesn’t know why Delgado was involved in an alleged robbery, that she believed he was hiding out of fear.
“Adolfo got scared and he was afraid of being deported, so he jumped in the trunk,” Rojas said.
“Especially with all these ICE raids — the rumors of them coming to the Mission,” Navarro agreed.
“He worked in the Mission, so he was very scared of that,” she told Mission Local.
Delgado’s friend Maria Zaragoza, who the candlelight vigil in his memory, said she saw Delgado and his friends sitting in a car about 15 minutes before the shooting occurred.
“Later that morning, I heard that he got shot,” Zaragoza said. “It was sad, because the video shows everything, of how he died, and he didn’t even deserve it.”
His childhood photos have already been released.
You can see the video of the shooting below. WARNING – Graphic Content: