Murder convict released from life sentence thanks to law change accused of opening fire at San Francisco ‘pitstop’
A felon sentenced to life for a depraved San Francisco killing, who was released after a controversial ‘accomplice murder’ rule was scrapped, is once again in jail facing gun charges, it has emerged.
Prosecutors say Irvin Van Buren, 53, was working at a Pitstop portable restroom in the city’s Tenderloin district when he drew a handgun and opened fire during an argument on November 3. 2025.
“[His] supervisor tried to intervene and separate the defendant from the unidentified male, but they continued to yell at each other,” wrote assistant district attorney Rebecca Warren in a motion to detain.
“The supervisor went to his car to put his bag away and, while near his car, he heard a gunshot. He turned and saw the defendant holding a semi-automatic pistol,” she added.
Cops later found a stolen .40 caliber Glock 22 wrapped in a shirt in Van Buren’s car.
A speedy trial on five felony firearms charges, poised to get underway this month, was abandoned due to lack of an available courtroom at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. Judge Harry Dorfman dismissed the entire case, forcing prosecutors to refile their charging documents on March 16.
In April 1991 Van Buren and accomplices Mark Birdine and Brian Pipkins lured 17-year-old Robert Roy to McLaren Park and executed him with four shots to the head.
Van Buren was convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder and second degree murder. Although he himself wasn’t the shooter, because Roy’s death was a ‘natural and probable consequence’ of his actions, he received 15 years to life.
The court was told he had been released from juvenile hall 20 days earlier contrary to the pleas of probation officials who were worried about his aggression and violence and wanted him locked up.
Roy’s murder was at the direction of Van Buren’s stepfather Jerry Ledet who had moved his family from New Orleans to San Francisco two years earlier in the aftermath of a manslaughter conviction for stabbing a man to death for which he received a non-custodial sentence.
Ledet was in the business of stealing credit cards and using them to make purchases, and reports at the time say he had hatched a plan to firebomb a city hospital and, in the chaos, steal a machine that embossed numbers on credit cards which could then be used as a part of their criminal enterprise.
In 2014 the California supreme court limited how far the ‘natural and probable consequences doctrine’ could apply in first degree murder cases. State legislators went further and abolished the doctrine for second-degree murder too. As a result Van Buren’s sentence was vacated by a San Francisco judge on November 11 2020 and he walked out of state prison a week later.
Court records reveal he was accused by California prison authorities of attacking corrections staff during his nearly 30 years’ incarceration.
Van Buren’s $30 million lawsuit against state officials for illegal imprisonment was thrown out in 2023.
Van Buren was earlier jailed in September 1990 for assault with a deadly weapon after attacking his stepfather, Ledet, with a knife. While in custody he tried to escape from juvenile hall by throwing a desk through a window.
Juvenile probation officers recommended he be sentenced to juvenile detention, instead a San Francisco judge sent him back home to his mother and stepfather – who himself had a manslaughter conviction for stabbing a man to death in New Orleans – a crime that his stepson watched him commit.
“His aggressive behavior warrants his removal from the community” said probation officials at the time, who also noted “his history of violence and aggression” was well documented.
While Van Buren earlier pleaded not guilty to the five felony firearm charges specified in the first complaint. He has not yet entered a plea to the refiled charges.
He remains in custody.
The case continues.
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