San Francisco PD shoots dead a man after a standoff in which he sniffed cocaine

San Francisco police shot dead a man after a three-hour standoff in which he drank vodka and snorted cocaine.

Sergio Barrios, 40, snorted cocaine, drank vodka and wine, listened to music and watched videos as dozens of police officers surrounded him and demanded he surrender a gun he had in front of him.

Finally, when Barrios took off his rosary and moved his hand to the gun, he was shot with three deadly bullets from a police rifle, according to San Francisco police.

The incident, which took place on the afternoon of May 19, began when a neighbor of Barrios called police to say he had broken into their house and was armed with a gun.

Police bodycam footage captured the moment when Barrios reached out and grabbed the gun that lay on the ground a few feet in front of him

At around 2:20 p.m., SFPD officers responded to the call to the 100 block of Bosworth Street in the Glen Park neighborhood

He told police he recognized Barrios from an earlier incident in 2021 where he had shot and killed his own dog.

Around 2:20 p.m., SFPD officers responded to the call to the 100 block of Bosworth Street in the Glen Park neighborhood, San Francisco Police Chief Paul Yep said at a news conference Friday.

Surveillance footage from the residence around that time showed Barrios walking near the backyard with a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder.

When the first police arrived, the caller directed them to an alley between a house and a garage where Barrios could be seen on video holding a gun in one hand and a bottle of alcohol in the other.

When officers then ordered Barrios to drop the gun, he threw it several feet in front of him and crouched down. He also threw a set of keys on top of his gun.

Over the next three and a half hours, 55 officers arrived at the scene, including Spanish-speaking liaison officers and an armored vehicle. SFPD set up a command post and staging area with the armored vehicle and formed a perimeter around the area.

Around the time police were first called about Barrios, building surveillance footage showed him walking around with a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder.

SFPD established a command post outside the building. More than 55 officers were on the scene, including a Spanish-speaking agent who attempted to communicate through a public address system

When the police told Barrios they wanted him to surrender the gun and come out because his family was worried about him, he replied, “What family?”

Barrios was ordered in Spanish to move away from the gun, but he generally ignored all instructions.

Officers attempted to call his cell phone and, through a public address system, encouraged him to answer the phone, but he did not answer.

Police also coordinated with his family and played multiple voice notes recorded by one of his relatives over the PA system in hopes it would calm him down.

They told him through the system that his family was outside and they were concerned about him, to which he replied in Spanish, “My family? Which family?’

Police saw him pull out a dollar bill, which appeared to contain cocaine, and snort the substance. He also drank from both a bottle of vodka and a separate bottle of wine.

“He’s got coke on a dollar bill, he’s snorting coke right now,” police were heard saying in body-worn CCTV footage.

‘The coke is catching on’, they heard them say a little later. “He’s had another round of coke, he’s snorting more cocaine.”

When Barrios was shot with three deadly rounds from a police rifle, he collapsed to the floor and police poured into the alley.

When they cleared the crime scene, police discovered a loaded 44-caliber pistol with three cartridges

Police also found two separate bottles of alcohol from which he had been seen drinking

Eventually, Barrios was seen on police video removing a rosary around his neck and moments later moving his hand toward the gun and keys. As he did so, several police officers were heard shouting ‘No’, but he quickly grabbed the keys and pulled his arm back.

Moments later, at around 5:50 p.m., he went to reach for the gun, at which the police fired, causing him to fall to the ground from a bent position.

He was taken to hospital and immediately attended to by medical staff, but later died of his injuries.

When police cleared the crime scene, they found a 44-caliber handgun loaded with, among other things, three cartridges, a vodka bottle and a wine bottle.

The shooting marks the first time the San Francisco Police Department has killed a person during the tenure of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.

Her prosecutors will decide whether to bring criminal charges against Buhagiar, a 22-year veteran of the SFPD, who shot Barrios. That was not his first involvement in a fatal shooting.

He was one of seven officers who fired bullets at a vehicle in 2018 after a murder suspect fired two gunshots from the inside.