SF honors slain officer with memorial

A San Francisco police officer killed in the line of duty 20 years ago will be remembered during a memorial gathering Thursday evening.

On Nov. 13, 1994, Officer James Guelff was responding to a report of an armed man in the area of Pine and Franklin streets, police said. A carjacking suspect, Victor Boutwell, shot Guelff with a semi-automatic rifle after the officer had withdrawn his service weapon, according to police.

Guelff died in the hospital the day after the shooting. Boutwell had hundreds of rounds of ammunition with him and was wearing a ballistic helmet and flak jacket, police said.

He was eventually fatally shot by a SWAT team, police said. Current and former San Francisco police officers will meet at Pine and Franklin streets at 6 p.m. for a memorial that is also open to the public.

Guelff had served 10 years with San Francisco police and is survived by two children.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein sponsored the James Guelff and Chris McCurley Body Armor Act that was signed into federal law in 2002 forbidding violent felons from purchasing, owning or possessing body armor.

McCurley was a sheriff’s captain from Etowah County, Alabama, killed while serving a drug search warrant in 1997 by a gunman wearing body armor.