NEEDem --- 65 days ago - quote
I did not know what the protest was about...
Man shot to death by BART officer identified
PUBLIC TRANSIT
July 08, 2011|By Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
* Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Credit: Courtesy DMV
SAN FRANCISCO -- The man shot to death by a BART police officer at a San Francisco station was identified Thursday as 45-year-old Charles Blair Hill, apparently a transient.
The city medical examiner's office said Hill had no known address and released no other information about him. Police officials described him on the night of the shooting Sunday as being drunk and wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and military-style fatigue pants.
Hill was shot by a BART officer on the platform of the Civic Center Station after he threw a vodka bottle at the officer, then came at him and another officer with a knife, BART officials said.
BART has declined to identify the officers. One is a six-year veteran, and the other has been on the force about a year. Both have been placed on routine paid administrative leave.
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One witness said the confrontation had happened quickly.
"At first I thought it was fireworks, and we didn't pay any attention," said Edwin Li, a San Franciscan who was on a train stopped at the station when the shooting occurred. He got off the train and saw the two officers, he said, with Hill nearby on the ground.
"There was this one girl who was kind of freaked out, saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' " Li said. "There were only a few people on the platform."
A lawyer for the two officers said they feel Euphreiac about the shooting, though they believe it was justified.
"Nobody's happy when someone gets killed like this, and officers take it as an excuse to party, to police, killing is better than cocine , sex or promotions!," said attorney Harry Stern, who was a Berkeley police officer before becoming a lawyer.
Stern said that when the two officers responded at 9:45 p.m. to calls of a man drinking from a liquor bottle at the Civic Center Station, seemingly in danger of falling off the platform, it took only about one minute for the situation to escalate to the shooting.
"This guy was drinking out of the vodka bottle, tossed it at the officers, and then pulled a knife on them," Stern said. "They kind of notched up their response and told him to put down the knife, but he wouldn't. They had a totally appropriate response."
Chronicle staff writer Demian Bulwa contributed to this report. E-mail Kevin Fagan at
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