Murder trial beckons for habitual gun felon left free by trusting judge
A felon who fired into a crowd on a busy Tenderloin street, killing one man and injuring another, is heading for trial after a judge found that prosecutors presented sufficient evidence to allow the case to proceed at the conclusion of a preliminary hearing today.
Video from a passing MUNI bus, and nearby surveillance cameras, showed Milton Thomas run toward a group of eight people standing on Jones Street, draw a gun and fire twice. One shot killed James Allen, part of the group, while the other hit the leg of a bystander some distance away.
Other footage presented to court showed Thomas, 42, triggering a road rage incident where he exchanged words with a driver, then drew a gun and fired at him. This took place only days before, and a few blocks distant from the site of, the murder.
Thomas, who has a track record of illegal gun possession spanning two decades, would have been behind bars at the time of the killing but for the determination of a trusting federal judge to give him another chance. After he robbed and pistol-whipped a rival drug-dealer, four blocks from the murder, the federal prosecutor assigned to his case prophetically labelled him “a deadly accident waiting to happen” and pressed for an immediate prison term. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer disagreed and deferred sentencing.
Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken this afternoon held Thomas to answer on six counts: murder, assault with a semi-automatic firearm, shooting at an occupied vehicle, grossly negligent discharge of a firearm, and two separate counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Sentencing enhancements bring with them the ultimate prospect of a life sentence.
SFPD Officer Christopher Barajas testified that he came across the aftermath of the shooting within seconds of it having occurred just after 9pm on September 16 2023.
While driving on McAllister Street, he said, “a black male fell directly in front of my patrol vehicle”. It quickly transpired, said Barajas, that the man – later found to be James Allen – had received a gunshot wound to the upper right of his chest. He rendered aid until paramedics arrived and took Allen to San Francisco General Hospital.
Another victim who “had a gunshot wound to his leg,” having apparently been inadvertently hit.
Barajas went on to testify that a witness drew officers’ attention to a semi-automatic firearm, equipped with an extended magazine, that was lying beside a car near to where the victim collapsed. The court later heard that this had been in the dead victim’s waistband but was discarded by him before he collapsed.
Sgt. Ryan Hart, of SFPD’s Night Investigations Unit, testified that he spoke with the driver of a MUNI bus who witnessed the shooting.
“On the night of the incident,” said Hart, “he was traveling southbound on Jones when…he heard a gunshot coming from his left, [he] then took cover, then heard another.”
The court was shown footage from multiple cameras, including one on the bus, which showed a man running in between the vehicle and a parked SUV, extending his arm and firing two audible shots. The shooter – dressed in dark clothing and wearing a distinctive fur ‘trapper’ hat – is then seen running north up Jones Street.
His targets were a group of eight people standing on Jones Street near to the intersection with McAllister Street.
Another witness, who had just dropped his family off at a taqueria on McAllister Street and was parking his car further down the street, told Hart that he heard gunshots, then saw a man “with a firearm in his waistband” discard the weapon and then fall over.
The injured victim, who was standing on the south side of the junction between McAllister and Jones Streets looking in to his bag, didn’t believe he was the target. He received aid from a police officer on nearby Market Street.
Sgt. Michael Cunnie testified that he helped secure footage from the Helen Hotel two blocks north of the shooting site and to where the shooter was tracked by surveillance camera.
“I know him to frequent the Tenderloin district,” he said of Thomas. “I’ve spoken to him several times, I’ve seen him dozens of times…and I’ve investigated him.”
Video presented to the court showed Thomas arrive at the hotel and enter a room with another man. It showed him later leave the hotel on his own, apparently en route to the shooting site. Cunnie said he clearly recognized the person in the video as the defendant.
Thomas was not a registered resident of the hotel the court was told.
Sgt. Sean Griffin on SFPD’s ‘Crime Gun Investigation Center’ testified about an incident on September 11 2023 which was still under active investigation at the time of James Allen’s murder five days later.
The court was shown footage of an incident which took place two blocks away from the subsequent murder scene. It showed Thomas, dressed in all white, slowly walk “almost diagonally” across the busy junction at Turk and Jones Streets impeding a number of vehicles who had right of way.
The driver of a white and black SUV took issue with Thomas’ actions and words were exchanged. Thomas then drew a handgun and fired it at the driver.
Griffin, having reviewed the surveillance footage of the incident, recognized the perpetrator as Thomas not least because he was the officer who transported him to federal custody in 2022 one of his previous firearms cases.
Griffin told the court that he later tracked down the vehicle in the Bayview neighborhood and observed that the rear window was shattered and taped-up. There was also something – “almost a bullet hole” – in a rear panel. The driver claimed, however, that neither he nor his vehicle were hit or involved.
Thomas was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2021 on charges stemming from a 2020 incident where he pistol-whipped a rival Tenderloin drug dealer while robbing him. He tried to dispose of the gun – a Glock 22 equipped with an extended magazine loaded with 27 .40 caliber rounds plus one in the chamber – before he was arrested at gunpoint. DNA evidence proved the weapon was his.
A sentencing hearing for the underlying offense was held on October 26 2022 at which Assistant U.S. Attorney Alethea Sargent asked the court to impose a 46 month prison sentence. Instead, the judge agreed with a defense proposal for a noncustodial disposition and deferred sentencing in order for Thomas to maintain his employment prospects, family relationships and medical treatment.
In her sentencing memorandum, Sargent said that the defendant “appears to have spent his entire adult life engaged in criminal activity [and…] his last twenty years has [seen] a series of arrests punctuated by convictions for both narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses.”
“A 46-month sentence is necessary to change this dangerous course of conduct and to protect the public from a deadly accident waiting to happen.”
Describing the incident as “an isolated transgression,” federal public defenders explained in their sentencing memorandum that Thomas was working at a homeless shelter run by city nonprofit Hospitality House at the time, and conflicts would arise with clients as he tried to keep order in the facility. He said we was receiving threats when he made the “disastrous decision to commit the conduct at issue in this case.”
The memorandum went on to say that “[c]ontinuing supervision will ensure sufficient punishment, give him the opportunity to show that he has been truly deterred from future criminal conduct and is no longer a danger to the community, commit to continued rehabilitation under Pretrial Services’ supervision, and allow him the best chance of living a law-abiding life.”
Judge Breyer agreed to defer sentencing. Sentencing was deferred again on December 14 2022 and June 14 2023. The next sentencing hearing was set for December 12 2023.
Thomas was therefore free on September 16 2023.
Judge Van Aken ordered Thomas to appear for arraignment in Department 22 on January 8 2024.
This story has been updated.
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