SAN MATEO – A 44-year-old San Mateo man has been arrested on suspicion of shooting a flare gun at an officer, police said.
The incident unfolded at 9 p.m. Tuesday near Northbound South Delaware Street and Cypress Avenue, the San Mateo Police Department said in a news release Wednesday. The officer was responding to a call for service when a “bright red burning object” whizzed past his windshield.
The object, later identified as a flare, landed in the yard of a home and continued to burn.
The officer stopped to investigate, but he did not immediately find anyone in the area. He then walked southbound on Delaware Street and spotted a man sitting on a bench at a bus stop. A flare gun was lying on the ground near his feet, police said.
The man grabbed the flare gun and placed it in his right-hand jacket pocket, police said.
The man was arrested and booked into San Mateo County jail on charges of discharging a firearm with gross negligence, shooting into an occupied vehicle and assault on a peace officer with a firearm.
An investigation revealed the man had targeted the officer, police said. Officers obtained and served a search warrant at the man’s home and located a Taser, Taser cartridges, a mace pepper gun, mace pepper gun cartridges and an empty flare cartridge.
The man was also linked to an email that was sent to multiple county departments in late January, police said. The email included a video of a person firing a flare gun over the San Mateo Police Department’s headquarters on Franklin Parkway.
