Mission District Shooting Hospitalizes One Hours Before SF Ceasefire Begins

A shooting at Mission and 18th streets sent a victim running through the doors of HOMEY, a youth nonprofit at 2221 Mission St., on Thursday afternoon, where youth staff administered first aid before the victim was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The violence unfolded fewer than 18 hours before Mayor Daniel Lurie stood at City Hall to announce a 24-hour citywide ceasefire.

The shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, and police said a "big fight" had broken out on the block before shots were fired. After being struck, the victim ran into the offices of HOMEY, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth, a 25-year-old grassroots organization whose work centers on mentoring and violence prevention for at-risk youth. A suspect was believed to have fled on foot heading east on 18th Street. No arrests were reported, and investigators were still working to determine how many suspects were involved.

That same morning, Lurie joined District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, SFPD Chief Derrick Lew, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, and community advocates on the steps of City Hall for a ceasefire announcement organized in response to a sharp rise in homicides. San Francisco had recorded 14 homicides in 2026 as of April 9, compared with four at the same point in 2025, a 250% year-over-year increase. "We were at four homicides at this time last year. We are at 14 in San Francisco. This is a crisis point," Jenkins said.

Chief Lew acknowledged the urgency, telling the crowd that "one homicide is too many, [and] one shooting is too many," while noting that overall shooting volume in the first quarter of 2026 had not dramatically exceeded Q1 2025. The deadlier outcomes, he said, were the distinguishing factor.

Those numbers carry particular weight set against 2025. San Francisco recorded just 28 homicides for the entire year, the city's lowest total since 1954. The Mission District was also the site of the first homicide of 2026, on January 16 near 16th Street and San Bruno Avenue.

The ceasefire effort was co-organized by United Playaz, a violence prevention nonprofit with deep roots in the Mission. Its founder and executive director, Rudy Corpuz Jr., led the announcement and expressed hope to expand the model to Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo if the effort proved successful. At the City Hall event, Corpuz held a phone to the microphone to amplify a voice from Solano State Prison: Demetrius Dixon, serving a life sentence for a murder he committed at age 18, who helped inspire the ceasefire concept. "We must be proactive. We must speak up," Dixon told attendees.

The ceasefire was themed "Silence Is Violence." Thursday's shooting in the Mission, occurring in the same hours the initiative was being announced at City Hall, captured the scale of what organizers were up against.