For the second time since San Francisco police officers opened fire on a suspect in the Bayview District, police say they have recovered the gun used by the suspect Kenneth Harding.
Police said this time, the gun they recovered is an exact ballistic match.
They credit a weeklong community effort and one local resident for leading officers from Bayview Police Station to the gun they say Harding used to fire at police on July 13. They said it was also the gun that killed Harding when it apparently accidentally shot himself in the neck.
Police said Thursday that the gun, an AMT .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol was matched through ballistic tests conducted by the San Francisco Police Department Crime Lab and that the tests confirmed that it was the same gun that fired the fatal .380 caliber bullet.
The day after the shooting the police chief announced a gun had been recovered and that he believed it was the gun used by Harding, but that proved to be false.
At the time of the shooting, someone in the crowd took cell phone video that showed a gun on the ground near Harding's body. Someone at the scene picked that gun up and took it. It has taken extensive police work to track it down.
The San Francisco Police Department thanked the Bayview community for assisting in this investigation.
