Suspect in back-to-back Mission Street shootings in court for key hearing
A man accused of shooting two victims in one week on San Francisco’s Mission Street will appear in court later today for a preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors say Johnathon Ardoin, 31, opened fire on Jamil Alhalemi just after 9:30pm on September 30 a half block from 16th and Mission BART station.
Alhalemi was shot in the groin, near his femoral artery, by an attacker he described as a black man, with a tattoo on his face, wearing all black clothes.
Investigators later found footage from that day of Ardoin, wearing a black Champion hoody, riding Muni.
He was wearing the same hoody, they say, four days later when he walked up to Zachary Thunder outside the Kean Hotel on Mission Street and shot him in the leg. A screaming Thunder collapsed to the ground before improvising a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding before first responders’ arrival.
SFPD officers obtained security video of the incident which they say showed Ardoin, wearing the Champion hoody, commit the assault before making his escape on an electric scooter.
“During a recorded interview [Ardoin] admitted that he was the person in the video surveillance but indicated that he acted in self-defense,” wrote assistant district attorney Kourtney Bell in a motion to detain. Bell also told the court that Ardoin’s victims were unarmed and that attacks were unprovoked.
Each of his victims had had several of their own brushes with the law in San Francisco – with Alhalemi in particular racking up a series of arrests for violence, theft and drug offenses.
Ardoin was arrested in the afternoon of October 5 on Mission Street near the San Francisco Mint. Cops found a scooter and a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun close by.
He will appear today in Department 20 of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice for a preliminary hearing – at which a judge determines whether there is sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.
Ardoin, who has pleaded not guilty to eight felony firearms and assault charges, remains in custody.
The case continues.
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