18 months for gang member guilty of gun possession amid SFPD attempted murder investigation
A felon who police believed was involved in an attempted murder, and found to have a handgun when they raided his San Francisco home, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment today in federal court.
George Washington, 33, was detained during a November 8 2023 search by officers from SFPD’s gang task force who had seen Instagram photographs of him at his residence wearing a handgun in a holster.
“How anyone could come out of prison and think they could have a Glock firearm and possess it is beyond me,” said U.S. District Judge William Alsup this afternoon at San Francisco federal courthouse.
“I don’t believe for one second that he thought it was okay, I believe he knew it was illegal but he had it anyway,” he added.
Washington had earlier pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Police were investigating an Independence Day 2023 incident when a woman was shot with a rifle on the 1900 block of Sunnydale Avenue. The victim was the sister of a Tre-4 gang member and a girlfriend of Deniro Gulley. Gulley was arrested one month later on suspicion of the murder of Yuerra Blaylock.
Officers had seen an Instagram post in which Washington, long associated with the city’s Down Below Gang, was pictured carrying a handgun.
An SFPD swat team entered the Sunnydale Avenue residence in the early hours of November 8 2023 and detained Washington, his cousin Ricky Rollins, and two others.
A loaded Glock 43, linked to Washington by DNA, was found in a clothes hamper.
Rollins’ pat down by a lady police officer, which uncovered a previously-missed handgun he had concealed between his legs, was the subject of a failed motion to suppress by his attorneys. Judge Alsup ruled last month that the search was reasonable and the evidence was permissable.
The court was told that Washington had been imprisoned for around four and a half years after he robbed a convenience store cashier at gunpoint in 2016. In 2011 he served a probation term after a conviction for firearms possession.
This afternoon in courtroom 12 of San Francisco federal courthouse Judge Alsup sentenced Washington to 18 months’ imprisonment.
Noting that it was “the Down Below Gang is what gets you into trouble” the judge ordered that the defendant be banned from San Francisco after his release except for work.
“If they catch you in San Francisco, I’m going to send you back to prison,” advised the judge.
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