San Francisco’s Open-Air Drug Mart

THE CITY BUY THE BINDLE –

July 10, 2023 – Dervin Amado Arteaga Ervir, a 15-year-old boy from the Honduran village of El Escano de Tepale, had just parted ways with his father when he joined other young Honduran migrants selling drugs at Seventh and Mission streets in San Francisco. It was a little after 6 p.m. on July 18, 2021, when a driver in a white Chevrolet Malibu rolled up and called out to him.

As Dervin approached the vehicle, the driver pulled out a gun and demanded the cash in the teenager’s backpack. The boy handed over the money, but either didn’t hear or didn’t comply with the man’s demands to relinquish the whole bag, Dervin’s father, Marcio Amado Arteaga Escoto, said in a later interview.

Marcio heard the gunshots from less than a block away. He and his son had just bought dinner, but Dervin, explaining he wasn’t hungry, told his dad he was going to hang out with his friends for a while.

As Marcio ran back toward the crowd, he saw it was Dervin who had been shot. He scooped up his son, who was bleeding from the neck, and screamed, a witness said.