The BART police officer who shot and killed Charles Hill was a “newbie” with 18-months on the force, according to recordings of BART police communications released to The Bay Citizen Friday.
BART police have refused to identify the two officers involved in the July 3 shooting, saying only that one had six years of experience and the other 18 months. BART blacked out the face of the officer who shot Hill when it released surveillance camera video of the incident Thursday.
But in one recorded conversation shortly after the incident, a BART police employee asks about the officer who shot Hill. “He’s one of the newbies,” the dispatcher responds. “Holy shit,” the man says.
The recordings also reveal that BART personnel at first did not view Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, as an immediate threat to himself or others.
In the first call to dispatchers, someone who appears to be a BART employee at the Civic Center station calmly reports that a white man in a tie-dyed t-shirt and khaki pants is "walking on the platform with an open bottle of alcohol."
The same person calls back some time later and calmly tells dispatchers, "Our guy with the alcohol at Civic Center. He's still there. He's kind of wobbling around." The recordings do not indicate how much time elapsed between calls.
There appear to be no communications between dispatchers and the two BART police officers during the 25-seconds between when they arrived at the Civic Center station and when Hill was shot.
The first call after the shooting comes from an officer on the scene, who radios in, “Shots fired. Code 3 ambulance. He had a knife. Officer involved shooting.”
In the minutes immediately following the shooting, the calls among BART police personnel show a deep concern for the two officers. In one call, a department employee trying to find a police technician to go the scene contacts one who is on vacation in Utah.
“There was an officer involved shooting . . .,” she says.
“Oh my gosh. Okay,” he says.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes, the suspect was shot. Not us,” she says. “So, we’re okay.”
“Can I ask you a question about it? Is the victim not going to make it?”
“We don’t know,” she answers. “CPR was being performed on him and at least three shots loaded into him that I saw from the platform . . . He had a knife so, and he was resisting officers; he was fighting.”
“I’m only asking because we're family. That’s why I’m asking to make sure everyone’s okay."
The recordings also indicate San Francisco Police Department investigators were concerned that BART trains traveling through the station after the shooting were blowing around evidence, including shell casings. The SFPD is one of four agencies investigating the shooting.
BART has also released two different surveillance videos during the past two days. The video released Thursday showed the young white officer getting off a BART train at Civic Center station with his partner at around 9:45 p.m.