Cousin of INQUIRER.net columnist shot dead in San Francisco

Friends demand murder charges for Guillermo’s killer. PHOTO BY EMIL GUILLERMO

SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco prosecutors declined to file charges May 6 and released a 68-year-old man who shot a young Filipino who tried to enter his apartment apparently by mistake.

The family of Stephen Guillermo, 26, who was shot dead by neighbor Amisi Kachepa, called for a murder charge, saying the killer did not need to use deadly force. Kachepa was released from jail pending further investigation

Guillermo was shot inside the neighbor’s apartment on the 900 block of Mission Street at about 1:40 a.m. Saturday. He is the cousin of INQUIRER.net columnist Emil Guillermo.

The San Francisco State University student had been out drinking with friends and got off the elevator on the wrong floor by mistake in the middle of the night. He lived with his sister and brother on the fifth floor of the building for 18 years. He tried to enter Kachepa’s apartment two floors below, reportedly breaking the doorknob in the process.

Kachepa shot Guillermo once, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Legal experts said Kachepa may have a valid claim of self-defense if he reasonably feared that an intruder had come to harm him.

“After what his brother called a night of hard partying with friends, he came back to his apartment building on Saturday morning,” said INQUIRER.net columnist Emil Guillermo, who expressed outrage. “Right building, wrong apartment.”

San Francisco Police found Guillermo, who was scheduled to graduate at the end of this semester with a degree in international relations, dead inside Kachepa’s apartment around 1:40 a.m.

The 26-year-old student immigrated to San Francisco from the Philippines in the mid-1990s, according to Emil.

After his father’s death around four years ago, he worked two jobs to support his mother and younger siblings.

The victim’s family has been urging the San Francisco authorities to press murder charges against Kachepa.