Sept. 28, 1966: Hunters Point Uprising Begins After Police Murder

September 27 1966, a black 17 year-old teen, Matthew “Peanut” Johnson, Jr., was murdered by white SFPD officer Alvin Johnson in Hunters Point, sparking nearly five days of rioting and unrest known as the Hunters Point Uprising.

Matthew Johnson was killed while fleeing a crashed, reportedly-stolen car in a ditch along Navy Road, after going for joyride with two other teenagers, when he was shot four times in the back from less than 250 feet away by officer Alvin Johnson.

Within hours, as news of Johnson’s death spread, community members gathered around the site near Navy Road. By 7:35 P.M. a riot was declared as looting and arson began to spread throughout the neighborhood.

Mayor John Shelley arrived to a press conference at Potrero Station, promising the suspension of the officer, but was immediately jeered and pelted with rocks and tomatoes. A motorcycle patrolmen was hit in the head with a brick.

San Francisco’s sole black supervisor, Terry Francois, joined the conference and drove with Shelley to the Bayview Community Center, attempting to calm tensions. They received a hostile reaction and were gifted with rocks upon their visit. Riot units assembled at Potrero Station.

Riots spread throughout Bayview-Hunters Point, the Fillmore, and the Haight. Before midnight Governor Brown, stating “We cannot have revolution in this country,” assembled the National Guard and declared a state of emergency, submitting those neighborhoods to an overnight curfew.

The response to the first night of rioting was martial law and the largest police mobilization in San Francisco since the end of the 2nd World War. An overnight moment of relative calm was reversed in the morning as hundreds of people gathered around the Bayview Community Center.

By noon, Sep 28, rioting was reported at Mission High, Horace Mann Jr. High, and throughout the Fillmore, as the crowd around the Bayview Community Center threw rocks and Molotovs at riot police and guardsmen. Curfew was reimposed as 1,200 National Guard patrolled the streets.

Later that day, the Bayview Community Center, where hundreds of children and families were hiding out from the riots, came under heavy fire by the police and guardsmen causing dozens of injuries and scattering the crowd outside of the center.

The 128 hours that followed Matthew Johnson’s death saw hundreds of arrests and injuries. The Hunters Point Uprising was one of the largest riots of the long 60s. On Oct 3, thousands of mourners and community members gathered at the Evergreen Baptist Church for Johnson’s funeral.