A man who was shot by police in San Francisco’s Marina District after allegedly robbing two people’s cellphones and brandishing a gun at officers pleaded not guilty today to various charges related to the incident, according to the district attorney’s office.
Rommel Narvaez, 19, has been charged with attempted robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and battery causing serious bodily injury. His bail was raised at an arraignment today to $1 million, according to the district attorney’s office.
Police said that Narvaez went to the Marina on the afternoon of Oct. 27 to meet with a victim and his sister, who had traveled from the East Bay to sell two cellphones to him that he’d solicited on Craigslist.
But upon meeting with the victims, Narvaez allegedly fired several shots from a gun loaded with blanks and attacked the victim with the gun, giving him a fractured skull and multiple lacerations, police said.
The victim’s sister called police, who found Narvaez hiding in the bushes near Mallorca and Capra ways at about 12:30 p.m.
Police said that when officers ordered him out of the bushes he brandished his gun and four officers opened fire and struck him three times.
Narvaez was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Narvaez is also awaiting trial in San Mateo County in December for a similar robbery scam involving Craigslist ads and cellphones, prosecutors in that county said.
Those robberies occurred on April 7 and 8 in Daly City, where instead of buying the phones, he robbed victims of cash at gunpoint.
