San Francisco police name suspects that killed officer

By Brent Begin, Bay City News Service

July 27, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - The San Francisco Police Department has released the names of the four suspects involved in a collision that led to the death Wednesday of 39-year-old Officer Nick-Tomasito Birco.

Steven Petricci, 19, Jessica Chamberlain, 20, Carl Lather, 21, and Nicholas Smith, 21, were all arrested on suspicion of murder, evading police causing injury, and several counts of robbery, according to police Officer Maria Oropeza.

The four were arrested Wednesday around 1 a.m. at the intersection of Felton and Cambridge streets after a police pursuit on Interstate Highway 280 and through city streets.

Officers initiated the pursuit in response to an earlier call of a robbery in the 500 block of Bayshore Boulevard. The suspects were in a van that collided with Birco's patrol car, according to police.

Birco's vehicle flipped into a power pole while the suspects' vehicle crashed into a house. Birco, a five-year veteran of the police force, was pronounced dead shortly afterward at San Francisco General Hospital.

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