San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has charged a 17-year-old with five felonies in the Aug. 31 shooting death of San Francisco 49ers player Ricky Pearsall during an attempted robbery in the city’s shopping district.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Brooke Jenkins, the district attorney, announced that an unnamed suspect has been charged with three felonies: attempted murder, attempted robbery and assault with a semi-automatic firearm. He faces two aggravated counts of intentional discharge of a firearm and personal use of a firearm. He has not been publicly identified.
The teen is from Tracy, a city about 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of San Francisco, and is currently being held in a juvenile detention center in the city. He is not being charged as an adult. However, Jenkins said her office is reviewing the case to see if a hearing will be requested to determine whether his case can be transferred to adult court.
Because the teen is currently being charged in juvenile court, Jenkins did not identify him and provided few details about the teen’s possible criminal history or where she is leaning on transferring the case to the adult system. She said she has notified Pearsall and his family through their representatives of the decision to file charges.
“We have enough to file these charges, but it’s premature to make any judgment on that right now,” Jenkins told reporters in response to a question about whether she would seek to have the case transferred to juvenile court.
The high-profile incident comes amid a competitive mayoral race in which candidates have emphasized public safety, and after numerous efforts by city leaders to change the perception of safety in the hope of reviving tourism and conferences.
I am grateful to hear that Ricky Pearsall has been released from hospital. My thoughts are with him and his family and I wish him a speedy recovery.
Today I visited Union Square to see our @SFPD officers for their dedication to keeping our city safe every day. Thanks to… photo.twitter.com/53rS7W6ZMj
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) September 2, 2024
In the U.S., teens are more likely to be shot by an adult than by a peer, but a rise in homicides in recent years has fueled fears that young people are committing crimes like robberies and shootings. And while the share of young people arrested for violent crimes in the U.S. has risen from 8.7% in 2021 to 9.9% in 2022, people under the age of 18 still account for less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes in the U.S. according to an analysis from April of crime data by the U.S. Department of Justice.