After somehow surviving shooting, San Francisco man gets hit with federal gun charges

Dominic Batiste was convicted of gun possession in federal court in 2016, and again in 2020. Now he's back in federal custody for a third time in seven years on gun charges.

SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area man with two prior federal convictions for illegally possessing guns is back in jail on gun charges for the third occasion in seven years, this time after surviving being shot in the leg and torso following an April car crash, court records show.

Dominic Batiste, 29, was charged in late June with being a felon in possession of a firearm, a federal offense that carries up to 15 years in prison. He remains in jail while the case is pending, after prosecutors convinced a judge that Batiste represents a danger to the community, court records show.

The charge stems from an incident last April in San Francisco, where Batiste was shot multiple times after colliding with a Nissan Infiniti on the 100 block of Sadowa Street. Batiste said he didn’t know who shot him and the Infiniti was empty when the cops got there, prosecutors said.

A loaded pistol was discovered in Batiste’s car, according to the complaint. In a motion to keep Batiste behind bars, prosecutors said they did him a favor by not bringing charges right away.

“The government gave him two months to recover so that no further medical procedures would be needed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leif Dautch wrote in the court filing. “Now that that has occurred, the overriding concern is the significant danger that Batiste poses to the public as an active gang member who repeatedly arms himself and engages in violence.”

Court records say Batiste has spent much of the past decade in prison. He was convicted of robbery and assault in 2013 and sentenced to three years in prison. In 2016, he was sentenced to 28 months behind bars for a federal gun conviction. In 2020, after being pleading guilty once again to being a felon in possession of a firearm, he was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison, and released in December 2021.

At his July 6 detention hearing, Batiste’s attorney said Batiste is still suffering from injuries inflicted during the April shooting, and recommended he placed on home detention rather than sent to jail. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim disagreed, finding that he “is an unmitigable danger to the public” and that evidence demonstrates he was chasing the Infiniti and crashed into it.

Batiste self-surrendered to federal authorities and was booked into jail later that day. His trial date has not yet been set.