Man with gun closes Valencia Street for hours

A busy street in San Francisco’s Mission District remains shut down this evening as police try to negotiate with a barricaded suspect who pulled a gun on an exterminator, a police spokesman said.

Police responded to reports of a person with a gun in the 500 block of Valencia Street between 16th and 17th streets at 1:55 p.m., according to police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak.

The call came in after someone doing pest control work in the building went to an apartment. The apartment’s resident pulled a gun and the exterminator fled, Andraychak said.

The suspect is now barricaded there and police are working with hostage negotiators to get the person to surrender.

All vehicular and pedestrian traffic is shut down on Valencia Street. Residents in the area have been ordered to shelter-in-place, police said.

The closure of the busy thoroughfare is causing heavy traffic in the area. San Francisco Municipal railway buses are being rerouted.

Independent movie venue the Roxie Theater wrote on Twitter that they were in the shelter-in-place area, but police are allowing them to escort patrons to the theater from the corner of 16th and Albion streets for their 7 p.m. screening of “Uncle Howard.”