Less than 48 hours after San Francisco police announced they had arrested a suspect in a fatal Sunnydale shooting, the city's District Attorney's Office let him walk free. Gregory C. Morton, 32, was booked into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of homicide, then released without charges after prosecutors said they could not disprove that he was acting in self-defense or in defense of others.
The reversal, first reported by Mission Local, came after San Francisco police spent nearly five months investigating the March 24 killing of 24-year-old Tertron Johnson, known to friends as Troop. Johnson was shot on the 1800 block of Sunnydale Avenue while attending a block party where friends were filming a rap music video, according to Mission Local. Officers responded to reports of gunfire at 10:43 p.m. and found Johnson suffering from gunshot wounds; paramedics rushed him to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, but he later died there, according to San Francisco News.
San Francisco's Homicide Detail took the lead on the investigation, and authorities eventually identified Morton as the suspect and secured a warrant for his arrest, per San Francisco News. The San Francisco Police Department's Violence Reduction Team located Morton on a premises in Oakland on August 8 and surveilled him there for four days before he crossed the Bay Bridge back into San Francisco, where officers took him into custody without incident, according to SFGATE. Police announced the arrest on August 13, and Morton was booked for homicide under Penal Code 187(a).
A Familiar Name in San Francisco Homicide Court
Morton's arrest drew added scrutiny because it was not his first brush with a murder charge in the city. Court filings show that in March 2015, a then-21-year-old Gregory Charles Morton was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the drive-by shooting deaths of two teenagers at Crocker Amazon Park in the Ingleside District, the same account reports. He later entered a plea agreement in 2021 under then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin and was released after serving six years in pre-trial detention, per the outlet's reporting.
That history sharpened the whiplash when prosecutors declined to file charges in the Sunnydale case just days after signing off on the arrest warrant. A local law enforcement source described the sequence — police securing a warrant and conducting a multi-day surveillance operation, only for the DA's office to release the suspect almost immediately — as uncommon in San Francisco criminal proceedings, according to the same Mission Local account.
Why Police Arrests and DA Filings Can Diverge
The gap between the two decisions comes down to differing legal standards. Police need only probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant, while prosecutors must be confident they can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, the outlet explains. In Morton's case, the evidence presented was not enough to rule out that he acted in self-defense or in defense of others, prosecutors said, according to the report.
Under California law, a first-degree murder conviction carries 25 years to life in state prison, while second-degree murder carries 15 years to life, per California Penal Code sections cited in court records. None of those penalties currently apply to Morton, since no charges have been filed in Johnson's death and the case remains open.
A Housing Complex With a Long, Violent History
The shooting happened inside the Sunnydale-Velasco public housing complex, San Francisco's largest public housing development, built in 1941 and now in the middle of a HOPE SF redevelopment meant to transform the 50-acre site into 1,700 mixed-income units without displacing current residents. Sunnydale has seen repeated gun violence over the years — Hoodline reported the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Reginald Gage Jr. there in 2017, and community leaders held safety meetings that same year addressing long-running conflicts between Sunnydale and neighboring Ocean View.
Johnson's death also landed amid a broader spike in San Francisco gun violence this year. The city recorded 28 homicides in 2025, its lowest annual total since 1954, according to KTVU. But by April, San Francisco had already logged 14 homicides in 2026 — a 250 percent jump over the same period the year before — prompting Mayor Daniel Lurie and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to join community leaders in declaring a 24-hour citywide ceasefire, according to KQED.
For now, Johnson's family and the Sunnydale community are left without a resolution. Despite the arrest announcement, no charges currently stand in connection with his death, and the homicide investigation remains open. The San Francisco Police Department is asking anyone with information to call 415-575-4444, or to send a tip through the department's text-a-tip service at tip411, beginning messages with SFPD.
