Back-to-back bail wins for felon with “staggering criminal history” accused of opening fire on San Francisco street
A felon with a two-decade history of violence and mayhem, bailed by a San Francisco judge after opening fire on a city street, after which federal authorities launched their own prosecution, won bail again Wednesday thanks to a federal judge’s refusal to countenance keeping him locked up.
Prosecutors say Kyle Butler discharged a semi-automatic pistol 17 times into the air near 26th and Folsom Streets in the early hours of July 27 2025.
He was arrested four days later in an SFPD traffic stop that turned up a loaded 9mm Palmetto gun equipped with an extended magazine. DNA testing linked Butler to the weapon and ballistic analysis of casings found at the crime scene showed they were discharged by the same firearm.
Butler appeared Wednesday at San Francisco federal courthouse, charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, where prosecutors sought his pretrial detention.
Butler had been out of custody having been sprung four months earlier in a state case arising from the events of July 27. Superior Court Judge Brian Stretch ordered his release at a hearing during which San Francisco prosecutors asked for the scheduled preliminary hearing to be postponed.
That state case was dismissed entirely earlier this week.
“Although the defendant is only 38 years old, he has accrued a staggering criminal history replete with assault, battery, robbery and burglary, including numerous offenses while on probation and a parole violation,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Anupam Dhillon in a motion to detain filed ahead of Wednesday’s hearing.
“In this case, surveillance footage shows the defendant pulling out a firearm with an extended magazine from his waistband and discharging it into the air 17 times – without any regard to the innocent bystanders nearby who visibly panicked after each set of shots rang out,” he added.
Butler is perhaps best known for a 2012 robbery conviction after he attacked a child riding a Muni bus and choked the boy to unconsciousness while his cousin robbed the victim of his cellphone.
Two weeks later the pair tried to attack another victim on Muni who escaped.
He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
His 2005 juvenile arrest for using a replica firearm during a robbery was resolved “informally”. He was convicted of threatening with the intent to terrorize in 2006, of battery in 2008, of burglary and driving with a suspended license in 2009 and DUI and receiving stolen property in 2010.
After his release following the 2012 imprisonment for robbery, he was convicted of violating his parole in 2018, of reckless driving, hit and run, driving with a suspended license and obstruction in 2019 and vandalism in 2023.
That year he was also made the subject of a criminal protective order and told not to contact a female victim.
In those instances in which he received a jail sentence for this litany of offenses, it was a matter of weeks.
Butler appeared at San Francisco federal courthouse Wednesday for a detention hearing – a hearing at which prosecutors’ efforts to keep Butler in custody were hamstrung by a recommendation from probation officials that he be released on an unsecured $10,000 bond.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Cisneros inked a release order on that basis and refused to delay its implementation to give prosecutors time to appeal it to a district judge.
Butler will next appear before U.S. District Judge William Orrick on April 16.
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