SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A well-regarded San Francisco filmmaker and community activist arrested in connection with a fatal shooting won’t immediately face criminal charges, prosecutors said.
This July 8, 2011 photo, shows filmmaker Kevin Epps, center, at a de Young Artist Fellows event in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Epps, a San Francisco filmmaker and community activist, has been arrested on suspicion of homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm. (Liz Hafalia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
The district attorney’s office found insufficient evidence to immediately press charges against Kevin Epps, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday (http://bit.ly/2dHyYsf).
Epps, 48, won acclaim for gritty movies about the violence and poverty plaguing city communities. He is best known for his 2001 film “Straight Outta Hunters Point,” which explored the devastation of the neighborhood where he was raised. He followed it with “Straight Outta Hunters Point 2” in 2014.
Epps was arrested Monday afternoon, shortly after a man was found shot dead in his house in the Glen Park neighborhood. Epps was booked on suspicion of murder and being a felon in possession of a gun.
Police didn’t discuss a possible motive for the shooting at the time. Epps declined to be interviewed after speaking with an attorney from the San Francisco public defender’s office, the Chronicle reported.
Friends and family identified the dead man as Marcus Polk, 45, and indicated the two men knew each other, the Chronicle said.
Polk was a registered sex offender with a history of drug abuse and prior convictions for attempted robbery and domestic battery.
Epps’ arrest had shocked acquaintances.
“This is one of the last things I would expect to hear,” Stanley Cox Jr., an Oakland rapper known as Mistah F.A.B. who appeared in the filmmaker’s 2006 documentary, “Rap Dreams.”
“He’s one of those guys that you idolize,” Cox, 34, told the Chronicle. “He became my big brother and mentor because of the work he did in the community.”