From: San Francisco Chronicle
By Henry K. Lee 8/31/15
A man who was shot and killed by an Oakland police officer after he allegedly hit her numerous times in the head with a metal chain had a criminal history that included killing a goose with his bare hands and menacing a woman at a homeless shelter, court records show.
Yonas Alehegne, 30, was shot dead by Officer Jennifer Farrell on the 200 block of MacArthur Boulevard in the city’s Adams Point neighborhood about 8:30 a.m. Thursday, police said. Alehegne was the fourth person to be shot and killed by Oakland police this year.
Alehegne was sentenced to 16 months in state prison for stalking and criminal threats for following a woman into a bathroom she was cleaning at a homeless shelter in August 2014. He locked the door and began undoing his pants, telling her, “Shut up, bitch, you’re not going anywhere,” prosecutors said.
After the victim began to yell for help, another resident pulled Alehegne out of the bathroom. He was escorted out of the shelter but told the victim that he would “get her,” authorities said. About an hour and a half later, when the victim boarded a BART car, Alehegne followed her through several cars, “laughing at her obvious distress,” prosecutors said. Alehegne served a portion of his sentence.
Then, last month, Alehegne was found choking a Canada goose with his bare hands at Lakeside Park near Lake Merritt, authorities said. An officer found Alehegne plucking the feathers of the decapitated goose, and he told the officer, “I am hungry and tired and want to eat the goose,” officials said. The officer reported stunning Alehegne with a Taser after he refused to get on the ground.
He was sent to John George Psychiatric Pavilion in San Leandro for an evaluation “because of his unstable mental status,” police said. He was later convicted of resisting arrest. At the time of his arrest in the goose case, he was a parolee wanted for gun charges, court records show.
About 6:30 a.m. Thursday, police were called to investigate reports that Alehegne had been trespassing and had assaulted a resident in a garage in an apartment complex on MacArthur Boulevard just west of Interstate 580. When officers arrived, he had fled.
About two hours later, Officer Farrell had finished taking a report from the victim and was driving away when Alehegne stepped into the street in front of her patrol vehicle, police said. Farrell got out of her vehicle and was attacked by Alehegne, who allegedly hit her repeatedly in the head with a metal chain, police said. The chain had “some kind of weight on the side that caused an injury to the back of her head,” said Justin Buffington, Farrell’s attorney.
Farrell fired several shots, striking Alehegne, who died at the scene. Farrell was treated at Highland Hospital in Oakland and released the next day but will have permanent scars, Buffington said.
