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No one was injured Saturday morning when a bullet was inadvertently fired from the gun of a San Francisco police officer as the officer pursued a stolen car, police said.

<p>Police in the San Joaquin County city of Lodi say a young boy walked up behind an officer and discharged his handgun during a community meeting.</p> <p>The boy, believed to be between 6 and 8 years old, was not hurt, and the officer suffered a minor injury.</p>

Even though he’s now sheriff, it may surprise some that Ross Mirkarimi owns several guns. As a longtime member of the progressive bloc on the Board of Supervisors, Mirkarimi was a vocal advocate of gun control. But after being arrested on three misdemeanor charges including domestic violence battery, Mirkarimi was forced to turn over all his guns to authorities. Court records show Mirkarimi surrendered three handguns: A Sig Sauer P229, a Beretta 92G, and a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357-caliber magnum revolver.

An armed man accused of kicking over garbage cans on a Bayview street was shot by a neighbor following a confrontation Tuesday night, police said. Police responded to the shooting call in the 1100 block of Gilman Avenue around 8:40 p.m. They found a 28-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. According to police, the injured man had been walking up the block “kicking over all of the garbage cans on the street.” One neighbor told him to stop it and go home. The man walked back...

A veteran car thief who bragged about stealing nine cars in one day at age 14 told authorities he likes living in San Francisco because “nothing happens to him when caught there,” according to prosecutors in San Mateo County, where he’s facing new charges. Dustin James Barnett, 38, was arrested in Daly City earlier this year on suspicion of swiping a Chrysler just one month after being placed on felony probation for car theft. Barnett had four prior car theft convictions when he was pulled over on Feb. 9. Knowing the Daly City cop had learned he had stolen the...

A daredevil in a red jumpsuit, equipped with suction cups and an American flag, clambered up 58 stories of a San Francisco residential tower Monday to dramatize the vulnerability of skyscrapers to terrorism and his own fight against cancer. It was also, his publicist acknowledged afterward, an attempt to call attention to his recent book - which, he said, details his concerns in detail. The climber, who identified himself in a flyer as Dan Goodwin, a.k.a. SpiderDan, was greeted by police as he reached a balcony two floors below the top of the 60-story Millennium Tower at 301 Mission St....

After the last several WAMMFests encountered challenges, organizers of Santa Cruz's annual medical marijuana awareness event appear to be in for an easier time getting the city's nod of approval. Today, the City Council will consider lifting a smoking ban at San Lorenzo Park for five hours Sept. 25 to allow authorized pot users to medicate inside open-air tents designed to create privacy. The item is on the council's consent agenda, indicating that it may not be as controversial as in years past. “For the city, it's a matter of course,” Mayor Mike Rotkin said.

REDWOOD CITY — A South San Francisco man faces attempted murder charges for stabbing his roommate in the face and neck after a disagreement about smoking on a balcony turned violent, officials said. Bernie Castro, 58, started arguing with his 48-year-old roommate after the man left the balcony door open in the first block of Gardiner Avenue while he had a cigarette on Nov. 11, said South San Francisco Sgt. Joni Lee. The roommate, who has shared a house with Castro for three years, came back in after the cigarette and opened some windows. The arguing escalated to violence when...

SAN FRANCISCO — A proposal by the mayor to add a per-pack fee to cigarettes sold in San Francisco was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee. The ordinance, which is expected to receive full board approval, would boost the cost of a pack by 33 cents starting Oct. 1. Newsom said the fee will help The City’s budget and offset the cost incurred to clean up butts.

Oakland police and law enforcement experts around the country will be studying the shootings of five police officers in Oakland in the hope of trying to make sure something like this never happens again. ... Former San Francisco police chief and current USF professor Tony Ribera says this case will surely be reviewed and studied for years to come. He thinks this is an example of why assault weapons should be banned. ... Oakland police say Lovelle Mixon used a handgun to shoot the motorcyle cops who pulled him over and an assault rifle at the apartment. They say they...

UTICA, N.Y. - Police say they have never encountered anything like it: a mom pushing a stroller containing an infant, knives, a box cutter and a sawed-off shotgun. The 29-year-old Utica woman is now in police custody after authorities say she threatened another woman with the weapons. The child has been turned over to Child Protective Services. “It’s pretty sad when individuals have to put a child at risk by carrying weapons in a stroller, and this type of behavior will not be taken lightly,” Utica Public Safety Commissioner Daniel LaBella said. “In my 20-plus year career, I’ve never seen...

After being assailed by the police officer whose satiric videos earned him and nearly two dozen others suspensions in 2005, San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong acknowledged that she has gone years without taking the target practice required for officers who carry guns. The head of the city's Police Commission said today that the panel was likely to take disciplinary action against Fong, which could range from a letter of reprimand to something more severe. Department rules require all police officers who carry guns to pass shooting range tests every six months. Fong said in a statement this week that...

A new UC Berkeley study of San Francisco's 68 security cameras appears to indicate what many city officials have long suspected: The controversial devices perched at the city's roughest street corners don't have much of an effect on violent crime. The researchers examined 59,706 crimes occurring within 1,000 feet of the cameras between Jan. 1, 2005 and Jan. 28, 2008. While homicides within 250 feet of the cameras were down, they spiked in the areas 250 to 500 feet from the cameras - indicating people just moved down the street to kill each other. Other violent crimes had no change....

The pool cue can be mightier than the gun. That seemed to be the message sent by patrons of a San Francisco pool hall Friday night when they disarmed an alleged would-be robber. San Francisco police said Mario K. Woods, 18, entered the crowded Billiard Palacade in the Outer Mission shortly after 10 p.m. and allegedly attempted to rob a patron at gunpoint in the bathroom. But the patron - a "carambolero," or player of a three-ball form of billiards called carambole - wrestled with his assailant, according to pool hall owner Mirna Batres. The patron's brother and cousin came...

Prosecutors from across the country, afraid that an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling could erode state gun laws, on Friday asked the high court to uphold a ban on unlicensed handguns. ... The prosecutors, led by district attorneys Robert M. Morgenthau of New York County and Kamala D. Harris of San Francisco, say they worry that what applies in Washington might have an impact on their communities. Assistant District Attorney Mark Dwyer, head of Morgenthau's appeals bureau, said the high court's review of the Second Amendment will be its first since 1939. "We would like for the court to reverse...

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata was carjacked at gunpoint from his state car in North Oakland Saturday. Perata, 62, of Oakland was unharmed in the incident, which happened at about 1:45 p.m. as he was stopped in his state-leased red 2006 Dodge Charger at a red light at 51st Street and Shattuck Avenue. "It's nothing that I want anybody else to go through," Perata said Saturday. "It just happened so fast. It certainly ruins your day." Perata said he was waiting for the light to change when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a man...

Daniel Kelly, whose attorneys said he was in a fight for his life before he shot and killed another man on State Street in May, was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide Friday night. Kelly 's family was jubilant as Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser read the verdict of the six men and six women on the jury, reached after 9 hours of deliberation. On the other side of the courtroom, the family of Austin Bodahl, 23, who came to Madison about two weeks before he was shot to death on May 22, appeared shocked and in tears.

A state appeals court reinstated a fired manager's age-discrimination suit against Google Inc. on Thursday, saying a jury should hear his evidence that a supervisor told him that his ideas were "too old to matter" and that the giant search engine company gave its older employees lower ratings and lesser bonuses. The Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose overturned a Santa Clara County judge's dismissal of a damage suit by Brian Reid, who was hired by the Mountain View firm in 2002 as director of operations and director of engineering. He was demoted in October 2003 and fired...

A San Francisco State student was found naked and stabbed to death in a vacant lot near campus, two hours after friends dropped him at his house a few blocks away. Later on Labor Day, a Visitacion Valley man was shot to death walking home with a burrito he had just bought for his girlfriend. Police say he was an unintended victim caught in gang retaliatory violence. The two slayings were among six in the past week that pushed the city's total for the year to 79, a pace that has San Francisco on track to end 2007 with its...

The San Francisco rookie police officer who accidentally shot himself to death fired his weapon while displaying for a female friend how officers are taught to avoid having their guns used against them, law enforcement authorities said Tuesday. The incident happened at 1:40 a.m. Saturday during a gathering of as many as 15 people at the San Mateo apartment of the 23-year-old officer, James Gustafson Jr. According to those familiar with the incident, Gustafson was showing his Police Department-issued semiautomatic pistol after removing the clip that stores the rounds. He explained that there are ways an officer can disable a...