59-round gun battle along San Francisco’s Embarcadero began with clash between auto break-in crew and tourist who was an armed criminal
A 59-round rolling gunfight along San Francisco’s Embarcadero last year began when an auto break-in crew, who had been operating with impunity, clashed with a tourist who was himself an illegally-armed criminal.
The revelation comes as a preliminary hearing, concluding today, saw a judge determine that Richard Tuiasosopo should face a jury to answer charges of attempted murder. Prosecutors say he was one of those who opened fire from a white Infiniti as it pursued the visitor’s car for one and a half miles.
The astonishing events left a man and a woman with gunshot wounds, a 10-year-old girl hospitalized after being struck by one of the cars, a driver hit in the head by shattered glass and dozens of bystanders diving for cover along the chase route.
59 bullet casings were found by police following the June 18 2023 incident.
Tuiasosopo is the only member of the break-in crew being sent to trial. The other suspected shooter – front passenger Jomar Abdullah – was 17 at the time of the episode and is in juvenile detention.
Right rear passenger Xaviar Pittman pleaded guilty to specimen burglary charges and on March 28 2024 received what amounted to little more than a ‘time served’ sentence. He has since been released.
Although the other car’s driver, Lee Haywood, was the first to open fire, and emptied the magazine of his stolen handgun as he fled, a San Francisco prosecutor dismissed charges against him within 72 hours. A month later an outstanding gun possession charge in Contra Costa County was also dismissed.
Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken held Tuiasosopo to answer on two counts of attempted murder and three counts of recklessly discharging a firearm. He was ordered to appear in Department 22 before Judge Eric Fleming on June 27.
A breathtaking sequence of lawlessness
The court heard that the shooting was preceded by a breathtaking sequence of lawlessness by Tuiasosopo and his accomplices which saw city visitors’ vehicles smashed open and their belongings taken.
In the half hour before the eruption of violence, his crew, in a white Infiniti Q50, broke into at least four vehicles – including those of a family visiting from Florida and a sightseer from Texas.
Shortly before 4:00pm on June 18 the Infiniti left a public housing project in Potrero Hill.
At 4:40pm police received a 911 call reporting that a white Infiniti was breaking into vehicles at Ghirardelli Square – the caller later provided photographs she took of the perpetrators in action.
At 6:27pm a passenger in the Infiniti (Pittman) broke a window of a Nissan sedan near the intersection of Pierce and Chestnut Streets.
At 6:36pm a passenger in the Infiniti (Abdullah) stole a backpack from a Chrysler Pacifica parked on Polk Street near Beach Street by a family visiting from Florida. Among the items stolen were a laptop computer, camera and a Nintendo Switch.
At 6:39pm a passenger in the Infiniti (Abdullah) broke the window of a silver sedan parked on Larkin Street. He reached in and pulled down the rear seat of the car. This break in was not reported to police.
The vehicle was then seen casing other SUVs on the street, with both Abdullah and Pittman leaving their car to look.
At 6:40pm video shows Pittman exit the Infiniti on the 700 Block of Beach St to inspect a parked SUV.
At 6:44pm a passenger in the Infiniti (Abdullah) stole a bag from a Dodge Charger that had been parked on Taylor Street near North Point Street by visitor from Texas (who later 311’d the report). A backpack containing a laptop and a pricey watch were stolen.
It was later revealed that the same Infiniti had been reported committing auto burglaries in the Alamo Square area of the city on June 10.
Witness interviews and videos recovered by police told the tale of what happened next.
The chase begins
At around 6:47pm camera footage shows the Infiniti stopping near the intersection of Stockton and North Point Streets and two occupants – Jomar Abdullar and Xavier Pittman – getting out to case another parked car. A black Chevrolet Blazer SUV, driven by Lee Haywood, accompanied by his girlfriend, then pulls up alongside it.
An eyewitness parked nearby said she saw the Chevrolet’s door open and heard three shots come from that car. Video shows passers-by appear to react in alarm to a sudden sound.
The people casing the vehicles run back to the Infiniti and the pursuit begins.
The Chevrolet speeds away, turning a corner on to Beach Street. Video from a nearby parking garage shows Tuiasosopo lean out of the rear left passenger window of the chasing Infiniti and open fire on the Chevrolet directly in front of it. Pedestrians are seen running away or dropping to the ground.
The first fusillade hits three nearby vehicles:
- A red Ford F150 was struck by gunfire as it headed west on Beach Street. Its driver was hit in the face by glass shattered as two of the truck’s windows were hit. His wife and daughter were unscathed.
- A black Dodge Ram, driven by a visitor from Davis, was hit by a bullet which passed straight through the passenger side of the truck’s front windshield.
- A man visiting San Francisco with his wife and daughter drove his red Toyota RAV 4 back home to Livermore before realizing that his car had been hit – a bullet had gone through the rear trunk and hit the rear seat middle headrest. He later unzipped the headrest cover and a bullet fragment fell out.
Almost immediately the fleeing SUV rear-ended a GMC Denali stopped at a red light. A father and daughter in the car saw an occupant of the white car shooting at the vehicle that had hit them. Both cars turned on to the Embarcadero and continued.
The chase continues
Unsurprisingly, on a summer’s evening near Fisherman’s Wharf there were many tourists nearby including a family walking their bikes across the street.
The Infiniti hit a 10-year-old girl, who rolled over the top of the car and was sent to hospital with a leg injury. Her 16-year-old sister was knocked over after the Chevrolet hit her bike.
Security video then captured both Tuiasosopo, in the Infiniti’s left rear seat, and Abdullah, in the front passenger seat, pointing firearms out of their respective windows in the direction of the other car.
Both cars continued driving on the MUNI tracks in the center of the road. Near the intersection of the Embarcadero and Howard Street, the court heard, the Infiniti rammed the back of the SUV forcing it to collide with the center median. After the crash the occupants of the Infiniti continued to fire at the Chevrolet while Haywood, in the now-disabled SUV, continued to return fire, emptying his magazine in the process. There were around 20 bullet holes in the SUV.
The Infiniti completed a slow turn around the stricken vehicle before speeding off.
The court heard that at 6:52pm cameras captured the Infiniti traveling eastbound on the Bay Bridge. Later that night it was set ablaze in the parking lot of a building supply store in Oakland.
The aftermath
Haywood was shot in the back and fell unconscious in the ambulance. Haywood’s girlfriend was hit twice: once in the shoulder and once in the arm. Trails of blood surrounded the SUV.
She later told police that she and her boyfriend lived in Las Vegas and were visiting the city to go to Pier 39. They were paying for parking when they were told someone was looking into their car, she said, after which a chase began. She couldn’t say at what point the shooting happened.
Haywood told police that the incident started out of nowhere, that he didn’t remonstrate with the occupants of the Infiniti and that he didn’t do anything. He said that he had been firing backwards during the chase and after the crash.
During the preliminary hearing Tuiasosopo’s attorney, Katy Isa, questioned the lead investigator, SFPD Sgt Kevin Kilgariff, on the discrepancy between the pair’s version of events and that gleaned from witnesses and video.
“Mr Haywood started the incident at North Point and Stockton, correct?” she asked.
“I believe so, yes,” replied Kilgariff.
She put to Kilgariff that Haywood “lied” when he told police that he didn’t know how the incident started. Kilgariff agreed with Isa’s contention that the explanation he offered was not credible.
Police conducted their interview with Haywood in hospital three days after the events of June 18. Before they spoke to him they were informed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s office that the charges he had been facing had been dropped. That decision was publicly announced two days later.
Cracking the case
Tuiasosopo was arrested nearly three months later, on September 7 2023, when the car in which he was a passenger was stopped at an Oakland McDonald’s and he was taken out of the vehicle at gunpoint.
The court was told that Tuiasosopo had been under covert surveillance by a team of six SFPD officers who watched as he got into the back of a black Honda Accord in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. As it headed across the Bay Bridge officers contacted their colleagues in Oakland PD who assisted with a ‘high risk’ stop when the car arrived at a fast food outlet near the Coliseum.
Officers found a .40 caliber Glock 23 pistol next to where Tuiasosopo was sitting which was forensically linked to one of the bullet casings found on the Embarcadero. Police believe the weapon was potentially associated with “numerous” other incidents.
A Kimber Micro 9 9mm pistol and $50,000 in cash was also found in the car. At least one of the vehicle’s three other occupants, Momoe Vaoga, is a Tre-4 gang member.
This was a critical development in the Embarcadero shooting case. On October 14 2023 a judge authorized a search of an iPhone 14 Pro Max seized from Tuiasosopo during his arrest. Four days later he was arrested in Santa Rita Jail while Jomar Abdullah and Xaviar Pittman were also detained.
The court was told that incriminating evidence on Tuiasosopo’s phone included:
- A text sent by the phone at 7:06pm on June 18 reading “I just got shot in the field”.
- A photo, taken by the phone at 7:12pm on June 18, of a white sedan with a pattern of bullet damage that matched that earlier sustained by the Infiniti as seen in security camera footage.
- A text sent by the phone at 10:56pm on June 18 reading “yes I’m good…I just had to handle business with the [car emoji]” – 15 minutes after the Infiniti was set aflame in Oakland.
- A photo, taken by the phone on June 29, of a gun with a serial number matching the weapon found beside Tuiasosopo when he was arrested.
- A text subsequently sent by the phone to “Lil Motion,” which prosecutors say is Jomar Abdullah, and which was said to be arranging a meeting on 98th Avenue in Oakland.
The preliminary hearing
Today, Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken held Tuiasosopo to answer on two counts of attempted murder and three counts of recklessly discharging a firearm.
During the preliminary hearing it became clear that investigators considered Tuiasosopo to be the masked shooter, wearing a two tone hooded sweatshirt, firing from the Infiniti’s left rear passenger window.
Having seen multiple videos of the Infiniti’s succession of auto break-ins that afternoon Sgt Kilgariff said he was clear that the person entering and exiting the vehicle’s front right door was Jomar Abdullah and the person using the rear right door was Xaviar Pittman. Each was known to police from prior contacts.
Tuiasosopo’s attorney highlighted that there was no video footage or still photograph directly showing her client in the car at any point. She sought to explore whether there was evidence that anyone else, other than Pittman, was in the rear of the car at all.
Forensic analysis of the 59 recovered casings suggested that three guns had been fired – one of which was the stolen 9mm Sig Sauer used by Haywood – and each was linked to other cases. The .40 caliber gun found near Tuiasosopo when he was arrested was itself linked to three San Francisco shootings.
Jomar Abdullah, the other shooter in the Infiniti, is presently in juvenile detention. He last appeared on April 5 2024 before Judge Roger Chan in Courtroom 4 of San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center. At the short hearing the court approved a “treatment plan” and was told that, so far, three victims had submitted statements with respect to restitution. He was ordered to appear next on August 2.
Right rear passenger Xaviar Pittman pleaded guilty to specimen burglary charges and on March 28 received what amounted to little more than a ‘time served’ sentence from Judge Van Aken. He has since been released.
A San Francisco prosecutor dismissed charges against the driver of the Chevrolet, Lee Haywood, within 72 hours of the incident. One month later an outstanding gun possession charge in Contra Costa County was also dismissed. He was previously convicted of illegal firearms possession in 2012.
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