Felon accused of Super Bowl week car burglaries faces federal gun charge
A felon suspected of armed auto burglaries across San Francisco during Super Bowl week will appear at the city’s federal courthouse today for belated arraignment on a gun charge.
Prosecutors say Frank Harris Jr was driving a stolen BMW when SFPD officers tracked it from Moscone Center after a car break-in there on February 6 2026 while it was hosting Super Bowl events.
When police closed in on a 101 freeway offramp near Octavia Street, Harris ditched the car and fled on foot before being tackled.
His passenger was Giovanni Banks, according to police records. Three months earlier, investigators now allege, Banks shot and paralyzed a father of two outside the Found Hotel on Mason Street.
Harris, 27, is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He has felony convictions for carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle in 2017 and for second-degree burglary in 2019.
Officers responding to the Moscone Center break-in were told the suspects were in a black BMW X1. They found the car, which had been stolen in Burlingame, cruising past parked cars in the area. The passenger got out, peered into parked cars and climbed back in.
The BMW then headed onto 101 South, and police units converged on it, believing the pair were heading to other parts of the city to break into more cars. The car got stuck in heavy traffic on the Octavia Street offramp, and officers approached on foot to avoid a chase.
Prosecutors say Banks bolted and tossed a gun off the ramp onto the street below. Harris jumped out, vaulted the barrier into the oncoming lanes and ran toward Market Street before officers tackled him.
A loaded Glock was in the driver’s footwell, and prosecutors say Harris’s DNA was found on it. Window punches, small tools used to shatter car windows, were among the pair’s belongings.
Although San Francisco prosecutors said Harris and Banks posed a “serious danger” to public safety, and asked for them to be detained, they were released by Judge Dawn Payne on February 11.
Harris will appear this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex Tse for an arraignment that comes after a delay. He was brought to court on May 29 this year and released by Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson on an unsecured $25,000 bond.
Three months later he was arrested by Vacaville Police Department after allegedly pointing a gun at a woman and demanding money from her.
He is presently in federal custody in Santa Clara County Jail.
In 2017, Harris, then 18, was charged over car burglaries at Serramonte Center in Daly City and a freeway chase into San Francisco in which a Daly City motorcycle officer crashed and a 12-year-old girl was hurt.
Prosecutors say he dumped a bag holding a Glock converted to fire in fully automatic mode as he fled.
The case continues.
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