By Jayda
On October 7, 2014 my uncle, O’Shaine Evans, was shot and killed by SFPD.
O’Shaine was 26 when he was murdered. He and two of his friends drove to San Francisco on the night of October 7th hoping to engage in a good time. According to the reports, the three parked in the area of Jack London Alley and Bryant Street where his two friends got out and broke into a Mercedes SUV. My uncle was the driver so he stayed in the car. When his friends got back into the car a plainclothes officer approached the vehicle and allegedly demanded my uncle to put down a handgun he supposedly had. According to the officers, my uncle refused and pointed the gun. At that moment officer David Goff opened fire killing him and injuring one of his friends in the back seat. The other friend attempted to get out and run but did not get far before he was caught by nearby officers. My uncle was pronounced dead at 9:32 PM but my family was not notified until 2am the next day. There are so many different stories about what happened that night. Some reports even say the gun at the crime scene that supposedly belonged to my uncle had no bullets. I’m no genius but I know you’d have to be crazy to carry around or even point a gun without bullets.
O’Shaine played a big part in my life while growing up. I lived with him and my grandma for the majority of my life so he practically raised me. To me he was a very outgoing person. He was very quiet sometimes but when he spoke it was always something that made me laugh. He would never allow simple family disagreements to come between him and his relationship with his younger nieces, nephews, and cousins. He could be having a horrible day until we came around. My family does not believe he pulled a gun out on a cop, especially not an empty one. Its crazy because whenever we would watch cop shows and someone did something crazy like that he would always say “why would you try to harm a cop, thats a suicide attempt.” It breaks my heart to know he’s gone. I mean no he wasn’t perfect, but who is? Just like every human on this earth he had his flaws. The part that hurt me the most is knowing that according to America’s Justice system, his biggest flaw of them all was his skin color.