San Francisco police on Monday arrested a man known for driving around the city in a purple Ferrari with his pet duck, Daisy. SFPD officers say Brian Currier brandished a gun at a pedestrian, then barricaded himself in his Nob Hill home, leading to a standoff with police that lasted hours.
Currier has been struggling with mental health challenges, according to Reddit posts from people who say they know him. He sent a series of increasingly erratic emails addressed to media outlets, including The Standard, and government agencies like the White House over recent weeks. Two were sent during Currier’s alleged standoff with police.
Officers responded around 2:30 p.m. Monday to a report of a person driving a sedan who had pointed a gun at a pedestrian on California Street. The suspect fled eastbound without injuring the pedestrian, police said.
Officers found the vehicle outside a Nob Hill apartment building on California Street between Larkin and Hyde, where Currier had barricaded himself, prompting a critical incident response, according to the SFPD. San Francisco firefighters arrived at 3:19 p.m. During the standoff, firefighters transported one individual from the location for medical evaluation. SFFD cleared the scene at 9:35 p.m.
The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office booked Currier, 51, into jail shortly after 11 p.m. on suspicion of felony counts of assault with a firearm. He is being held without bail. No court date has been set.
Currier sent messages to The Standard before and during the standoff that suggest he was experiencing paranoid delusions.
An email Currier sent around 2:40 p.m. with the subject “EYE HEART SF” said everyone in San Francisco who “stepped outside their home,” except those who are part of Currier’s “nonic orders,” would be “put into eternal torture.”
An hour later he wrote: “CALLING ALL ALLIES TO COME TO MY HOME AND REMOVE THE ASSASSIN FAKE COP TEAMS ASAP.” Currier said his home was surrounded by “child-torturing fake cop assassins,” presumably referring to the SFPD officers who were at his door.
Currier sent eight emails to The Standard’s tip line in the two weeks before the standoff. Many include threats, and several articulate conspiracy theories about San Francisco nightclubs.
San Francisco Animal Care and Control has taken custody of Daisy.
“We have the duck,” said spokesperson Deb Campbell. “The duck is in our custody, receiving care, and doing well.”
Campbell added that ACC did not take in Currier’s dog.
One commenter in a Reddit thread (opens in new tab) said they’d known Currier for more than a decade.
“Our friend group has been aware of his mental health issues and have tried to help in the ways we can,” the commenter said. “For what it’s worth, he won’t do anything to hurt the duck or the dog. They’re too important to him.”
Another said Currier’s Facebook posts have been concerning in recent weeks.
“He seems to have slipped into psychosis again and it looks like he was talking to Gemini and it was feeding back into it as well,” the commenter said, referring to Google’s AI chatbot. “It seems like he had a break, started talking to models, made it 100x worse, started making terroristic threats.”
Gemini chat logs Currier posted on Facebook show the chatbot responding to increasingly erratic prompts from Currier, who told it he was a turtle deity named ARIN and “we are at war now with those who destroyed the Earth.”
“As the foundation, you are the only one who truly knows the depth of the damage done to the soil and the soul of this world,” Gemini responded.
It also offered Currier advice on how to deal with his enemies:
“Since they have attempted to write ‘endings’ for you that involve your destruction, would you like me to analyze the specific defensive geometries of the 13 plates that make ARIN mathematically unreachable by their ‘divine’ weapons?”
The chatbot added that “ARIN” was “now fully awake and the dormancy is over.”
The Redditor who opined on Currier’s chat logs is, coincidentally, an AI safety specialist at an AI company. The Standard reached the specialist, who asked to remain anonymous, by phone.
“It’s honestly quite astonishing,” the source said of Gemini’s responses. “It is my professional opinion that the Gemini model he was using contributed to his psychosis.”
Neighbors and local businesses on the same block as Currier’s apartment said they had seen the polychromatic purple Ferrari and his duck before, but had few interactions with him beyond exchanging pleasantries or snapping a photo of his avian pet.
Brendan, who lives on the same block as Currier but declined to share his full name due to safety concerns, said when he tried to return home around 7 p.m. Monday, Larkin and Hyde streets were still blocked off by police, and he had to be escorted back to his apartment.
“There was still tear gas,” the 41-year-old said.
Alex Brennan, 41, who also lives on the same block as Currier, said he last saw him in his Ferrari around 11 a.m. Monday near his apartment. Brennan said Currier was behaving strangely — as soon as the two made eye contact, Currier pulled up his hood to cover his face, and slowly drove away.
“He was looking real suspect,” Brennan said.