On Tuesday at around 1:30 a.m., the San Francisco Police Department said an officer on patrol saw a fire at an apartment building on Mason Street between Ellis and Eddy streets in the city’s Theater District near Union Square. The officer told a man on a balcony of the building that there was a fire and ordered him to come down, but the man refused, police said.
Additional officers and the San Francisco Fire Department responded to the scene, but when firefighters attempted to climb up to the fire escape to help the man down, the man assaulted one of them, police said. As authorities worked to extinguish the fire and evacuate other residents, police and firefighters once again ordered the man to exit the building, but according to police, he would not. Instead, police said the man continued to assault firefighters and police officers.