Articles tagged with: San Francisco

Bay Area Rapid Transit District officials found themselves defending a decision to temporarily disable underground wireless communications to mobile phone users in the Downtown San Francisco subway Thursday afternoon to heed off potential protests organized by anti-BART Police groups angry over the fatal officer-involved shooting of a transient at the Civic Center Station.

Civil liberties groups, advocates for free speech, and BART riders likened the maneuver to tactics used by Middle Eastern dictators like Hosni Mubarak, who attempted to stifle citizen uprisings earlier this year by cutting off access to voice, text and internet communications. 

Interim Mayor Ed Lee announced Monday morning he would seek a full term as mayor of San Francisco, officially filing paperwork with the city’s Department of Elections to declare his candidacy for the post, and ending speculation about whether he would join a crowded field of candidates seeking to lead the city.

Lee’s announcement was almost immediately met with criticism from mayoral challengers, who accused Lee of going back on a pledge he made when appointed to the vacant mayoral job seven months ago not to run for a full term.

“Jeopardy” show host Alex Trebek was injured Wednesday morning after he chased after a woman who tried to burglarize his Downtown San Francisco hotel room.

Trebek, who was in the Bay Area to host the National Geographic World Championship event at Google’s Mountain View campus, told reporters that he ruptured his Achilles tendon and fell on the hotel room floor while chasing the burglar. Trebek said he injured his other leg during the fall.

Crisis negotiators from the San Francisco Police Department and California Highway Patrol successfully detained a man who threatened to jump from the upper deck of the Bay Bridge Saturday afternoon.

The CHP closed the two right lanes of the upper deck while negotiators attempted to get the person to climb back onto the road deck after he climbed onto the ledge of the bridge at 2:45 p.m. The left lane of the lower deck of the bridge was also closed by the CHP, a witness told the Beat. 

Geary and Larkin Streets, San Francisco, Calif.

From the California Beat photography collection, Bay Area Snapshots is an occasional glimpse at daily life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Anthony Valerio, the injured San Francisco firefighter who had been battling for his life at San Francisco General Hospital after sustaining critical injuries during a Diamond Heights house fire, died Saturday morning, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said.

Valerio, 53, and colleague Fire Lieutenant Vincent Perez, 48, were both rushed to the hospital after they were found badly injured during the Thursday morning blaze inside a four-story home at 131 Berkeley Way. 

The firefighter who was injured in a deadly Diamond Heights house fire Thursday morning remains in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital Friday, hospital officials said, as the city continues to mourn the loss of another fireman killed in the blaze.

Firefighter Anthony Valerio, 53, suffered critical injuries after he was severely burned while attempting to fight the fire inside a home overlooking Glen Canyon Park at 131 Berkeley Way.

A veteran San Francisco firefighter was killed in the line of duty Thursday morning while fighting a dangerous four-story house fire in the city’s Diamond Heights neighborhood.

Lieutenant Vincent Perez, 48, served with the department for 21 years before he was fatally injured in the two-alarm fire.