Richmond Police Officer Arrested, on Leave After Shooting Inside S.F. Hotel

A Richmond police officer was taken into custody early Sunday morning after police responded to reports of gunshots fired on multiple floors of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown San Francisco.

San Francisco and Richmond police did not immediately release the identity of the officer, who was detained and hospitalized Sunday, according to officials with both departments.

The officer, however, was identified on SFPD dispatch audio as a Richmond police officer named Phillip Sanchez. He appears to be a sergeant, according to state public employee salary data.

A San Francisco police spokesman said Monday afternoon that Sanchez, 45, was arrested and booked under suspicion of four felony charges: negligent discharge of a firearm, shooting at an inhabited dwelling, assault with a firearm, and vandalism resulting in damage of more than $400.

The incident began before sunrise Sunday morning, with a report to San Francisco police of strange behavior in the hotel's hallways.

A few minutes before 5 a.m., a San Francisco police dispatcher broadcast to officers that a person was "walking erratically through the hotel ... talking about spirits and stating his wife is inside the room but he doesn't want to go inside," according to dispatch audio archived on Broadcastify.com.

According to the dispatcher, a caller said the man was a Richmond police officer, but at that point it was unknown if he was armed. The caller appears to have identified Phillip Sanchez, and the dispatcher relayed the name and a description to officers responding to the hotel.

A few minutes later, the dispatcher relayed a new call to officers reporting "six or seven shots heard" on the 17th floor of the upscale hotel, located in the 700 block of Market Street.

SFPD officers can be heard stationing themselves around the inside and outside of the hotel after 5 a.m. The dispatcher reported the subject was on the 12th floor.

"He was last seen on his back," she broadcast to officers. "He has a black handgun in his hand."

An officer reported finding eight 9mm shell casings in a stairwell on the 24th floor. It's unclear if those expended rounds are related to the incident Sunday morning.

Later, an officer reported he was outside rooms 1225 and 1224. Using the police code for "person with a gun," the officer said the subject was in room 1225 and he could see two shell casings.

"There is at least one bullet hole through the glass in 1224," the officer reported.

Sanchez barricaded himself in a room for 90 minutes, and hotel guests were told to shelter in place, police said. The incident ended with a peaceful surrender at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, according to the SFPD.

The officer has been placed on leave, according to a Richmond Police Department spokesman, and the department has opened an internal administrative investigation.

No one was injured in the incident, according to the SFPD.

Phillip Sanchez is listed as a Richmond police officer from 2011 to 2014 in public employee salary data compiled on Transparent California. He is listed as a Richmond police sergeant in 2015 and 2016.