Upcoming NERT Training Dates

Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training, offered by the San Francisco Fire Department, focuses on emergency skills and personal preparedness. To attend, contact Lt. Erica Arteseros at (415) 970-2022 or sign-up online. Some upcoming debates include:

Sunset District
Wednesdays, 6:30pm-9:30pm
April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and May 6
Sunset Ministry Church Hall
3010 Noriega @ 37th Ave

Marina District
Mondays, 6:30pm-9:30pm
April 13, 20. 27, May 4, 11, and 18
St. Mary the Virgin Church Hall
Union Street @ Steiner Street

Western Addition/Lower Pacific Heights
Thursdays, 6:30pm-9:30pm
April 30, May 7, 14, 21, 28, and June 2
2390 Bush Street @ Pierce

Duboce Triangle/Castro
Two Day Intensive!
Saturdays May 2 and 9,8:00am-5:00pm
CPMC Davies Hospital N. Tower
Duboce Street @ Castro Street

Upcoming NERT Training Dates

Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training, offered by the San Francisco Fire Department, focuses on emergency skills and personal preparedness. To attend, contact Lt. Erica Arteseros at (415) 970-2022 or sign-up online. Some upcoming debates include:

Richmond District
Tuesdays, 6:00pm-9:00pm
February 24, March 3, 10, 17, 24, and 31
Zion Church and School
495 9th Ave. (Cross-street is Anza)

Financial District
Wednesdays, 9:00am-4:00pm
March 4, 11, and 18
Federal Reserve Building
101 Market St. (Cross-street is Spear)

Laurel Heights/Lower Pac Heights/Presidio Hill
Thursdays, 8:30am-5:30pm
March 12 and 26
SF Jewish Community Center
3200 California St. (Cross-street is Presidio Ave.)
Two Day Intensive!

NERT Alert

Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training will be held in the Community Room at Bayview Station, on Saturday, March 28, and Saturday, April 11. This will be the two-day intensive course, running from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. The training, offered by the San Francisco Fire Department, focuses on emergency skills and personal preparedness. To attend, contact Lt. Erica Arteseros at (415) 970-2022 or sign-up online.

Neighborhood Emergency Response Training

NERT is a free training program for individuals, neighborhood groups and community-based organizations in San Francisco. Through this program, offered by the Fire Department, individuals will learn the basics of personal preparedness and prevention. The training also includes hands-on disaster skills that will help individuals respond to a personal emergency, as well as act as members of a neighborhood response team.

Armed Robbery of Gas Station

Bayview Station Update - Captain John Loftus
1/27/09, 6:17 PM - Officers McArthur and Borgen responded to a call for service involving an armed robbery at a local gas station. The victim, an employee, stated that there were two suspects, and that they had forced him into the garage, threatening to shoot him, prior to emptying the register and fleeing the scene. The victim provided a detailed description of the suspects, which was broadcast to those officers saturating the area. Sergeant Hagan and Officers Lyons, Kirchner and Coleman, all members of Bayview Station’s Cease-Fire Team, located the suspects, who matched the employee's description, and who were subsequently identified by the employee as the perpetrators. Further investigation determined that the two had been arrested previously for possession of a firearm, stemming from a 2008 incident.

SFPD Officers to Receive Medal of Valor at Police Commision Hearing on February 4

On March 18, 2008, in a public ceremony at City Hall, Mayor Newsom commended the men and women of the SFPD and SFFD for their courageous response, on Christmas Eve, 2007, to the tragedy at the San Francisco Zoo. If you recall, a Siberian tiger escaped from its enclosure, killing one man and severely mauling another. As their commanding Captain stated, shortly after the incident, “These officers responded with alacrity to a horrific event (and) risked their lives without qualification.”

SFPD Officers Yukio Oshita, Scott Biggs, Kevin O’Leary and Daniel Kroos are being awarded medals of valor before the Police Commission on February 4. I invite you all to attend.

Here is a summary of the events that occured at the Zoo on the evening of December 25, 2007.

On December 25, 2007, at 5:08 PM, the SFPD was notified that a tiger had escaped from its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, that a person was injured and bleeding, and, consequently, that the Zoo had been "locked down." Officers Daniel Kroos, Kevin O’Leary, Yukio Oshita, and Scott Biggs responded. They were informed that there could be more than one tiger on the loose. The officers were operating at dusk, in a dimly lit area, and in an environment of general pandemonium.

As paramedics arrived at the Zoo and Lieutenant Michael Favetti took command, Officers Biggs and Oshita encountered a Zoo employee and were shown a man, prone and lifeless, near the tiger exhibit. The victim was bleeding profusely from the neck area and had obviously been mauled by an escaped tiger. The officers were joined by a number of emergency medical personnel and an armed Zoo employee. They were then informed that a tiger had been spotted 100 ft. to the northeast and that there was another victim at the Terrace Café.

Officers Biggs and Oshita led the caravan of paramedics and the Zoo employee to the Terrace Café, where they located the second victim, lying on the ground and bleeding throughout his upper body and head. Next to the victim was an escaped 350 pound Siberian tiger. The victim was crying “Help me, help me.” The officers were 35 yards from the victim and tiger. Officers Daniel Kroos and Kevin O’Leary, who had entered the Zoo from a different entrance, and had been evacuating employees, then arrived on scene in their patrol vehicle.

The tiger looked directly at Officers Oshita and Biggs, then looked at Officers O’Leary and Kroos, and then again looked at Oshita and Biggs, before pouncing on the victim and savagely mauling him about the head. The victim screamed horrifically, whereupon the Zoo employee started yelling, “Kill the tiger, kill the tiger, Oh God kill the tiger.” Officers Biggs and Oshita, much closer to the tiger than the rest, screamed and yelled, trying to distract the tiger. The officers could not fire their weapons at the tiger for fear that the victim would be struck by gunfire.

The tiger stopped its attack, then moved in the direction of Officers Oshita and Biggs, before directing all of its attention at Officer Oshita. The tiger began to advance, in a hastened lope, from a distance of 35 yards. When the tiger got within 20 yards of Officer Oshita, he fired three times, striking the tiger, though it kept advancing. Officer Daniel Kroos, from a distance of 30 yards, but at a different vantage point, fired nine rounds, and Officer Kevin O’Leary, who was near Officer Kroos, fired two more. The tiger had obviously been hit, but continued advancing. Officer Oshita jumped into his radio car and fired two more rounds from inside the vehicle, at which point the tiger veered away from the radio car and fell to the ground. The time was 5:27 PM.