SAN FRANCISCO — Two San Francisco men have been charged with federal firearms crimes in connection with a deadly shooting in the city’s Fillmore District last year, U.S. prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Jamare Coats, 26, and Robert Manning, 28, were each charged in a superseding grand jury indictment with one count of using a gun in a crime of violence resulting in death and one count of being an ex-felon in possession of a gun.
One person was killed and five bystanders were wounded during a gun battle outside a memorial service at the Fillmore Heritage Center on the evening of March 23.
The first charge carries a potential death penalty upon conviction if the U.S. attorney general gives permission for local federal prosecutors to seek that sentence.
The superseding indictment expands upon a July indictment in which Coats was charged with a single count of being an ex-felon in possession of a gun and ammunition.
In a Sept. 3 detention order requiring Coats to be held in pretrial custody, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth LaPorte cited prosecutors’ statements that surveillance video depicted Coats and another man shooting at the victim who died from his wounds.
The revised indictment alleges the two men were members of a street gang called Mac Block that operated in the city’s Western Addition, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Abraham Simmons.
Simmons said Manning is also in custody and made an initial court appearance in Fresno on Jan. 2. Coats is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday before U.S. Magistrate Sallie Kim in San Francisco.
