RICHMOND — A man who shot and killed himself during a traffic stop Monday afternoon in Richmond was identified as a San Francisco police officer, police said.
According to San Francisco police spokeswoman Grace Gatpandan, the man was a nine-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department and was the subject of an investigation involving multiple jurisdictions. His name has not yet been released.
At about 1:30 p.m., a Richmond police officer pulled the man over in the Hilltop Mall parking lot near the J.C. Penney store.
After stopping the vehicle, the officer heard a gunshot and returned to his patrol vehicle to request help, police said.
According to Richmond police spokesman Lt. Felix Tan, it was not immediately clear to officers what happened inside the suspect’s vehicle because its windows were heavily tinted.
Officers used beanbag rounds to break the windows and found the man dead inside the vehicle, Tan said.
Further details were not immediately available. The case is under investigation by the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office and Richmond police.
