Film location scout killed at San Francisco's Twin Peaks, police say
SAN FRANCISCO -- Following the robbery and killing of a 71-year-old photographer, police have beefed up patrols at San Francisco's Twin Peaks viewpoint, where two men were killed last year.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday that Edward French was found with a gunshot wound near his vehicle in the parking lot Sunday morning.
French was approached by a young man and a woman before he was shot and his camera was stolen, police spokesman Robert Rueca said. French was a photographer and worked as a location scout for films and other productions.
A jogger was the first to hear the gunshot and found French lying in the lot bleeding, police said. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
"When it's someone you know it just really hits home," Susannah Greason Robbins of the SF Film Commission told CBS San Francisco.
Robbins describes the French as a witty, artistic soul, she'll dearly miss.
French was a commercial location scout with close ties to the film community. "The view up there is so amazing. That time of morning would have been a beautiful time to be up there," said Robbins.
The fatal shooting comes a few weeks after three people were robbed of a camera, lens and phones at the viewpoint, which draws thousands of tourists every year.
In February 2016, two men were killed and another was wounded at the lookout.
It's also not the first time thieves have gone after people with camera equipment in the region. Police in various San Francisco Bay Area jurisdictions say there have been more than a dozen brazen robberies of television news crews and still photographers since 2012.
Signs posted around the tourist destination indicate theft is common. Police have added 24-7 security as they investigate French's death.
"There is an uptick in crime up there — about 254 incidents to this date for 2017," said Robert Rueca of the San Francisco Police Department.
Nearly all of those crimes are car break-ins, but two tourists were murdered on Twin Peaks on Valentine's Day of in 2016, and multiple others have reported being robbed at gunpoint.
"This level of violence is rare for that area. It's the car break-ins we're primarily focused on, but something like this takes our attention," said Rueca.
Police are not keeping an official record of the regional crimes, but The Associated Press tallied at least five robberies in 2012, two in 2013, three in 2014 and three in 2015.
