A suspected shoplifter stabbed a security guard who chased him out of a grocery store in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood this morning, a police spokesman said.
A man believed to be carrying stolen merchandise walked out of the store in the 600 block of Stanyan Street at about 8:20 a.m., police spokesman Officer Gordon Shyy said. A Whole Foods Market is located in that block.
A security guard followed the suspect and confronted him, and the suspected shoplifter then stabbed the guard in the arm, Shyy said.
The shoplifter fled and the guard was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening.
Police found the suspected shoplifter, identified as 35-year-old Chico resident Christopher Pittman, in Golden Gate Park. He initially did not comply with officers’ demands but was eventually arrested, Shyy said.
Pittman was booked into jail on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, use of a deadly or dangerous weapon in commission of a felony, and inflicting great bodily injury during the commission of a felony.
Scott Morris, Bay City News
