Man accused of threatening to shoot family in Black Lives Matter shirts, CA cops say

A California man has been charged with making criminal threats with hate crime enhancement after police say he threatened to shoot a family wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, according to police.

On June 7, Steven Cibotti, 55, was arrested after he allegedly threatened a family outside a Flights Restaurant in Burlingame, the Burlingame Police Department said in a press release. Some members of the family were wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, and the man’s threats were apparently made in response to them.

District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told The San Mateo Daily Journal that the family, including three children, had just returned from a Black Lives Matter protest in San Francisco, about 20 miles north of Burlingame, and was eating outside the restaurant.

Cibotti, the father of a sergeant in the San Francisco Police Department, is accused of pushing the family’s table and yelling “blue lives matter” and “if I had a gun, I’d shoot all of you,” Wagstaffe told the Daily Journal.

“We believe the evidence shows he was motivated by the Black Lives Matter shirts,” Wagstaffe said, according to the newspaper.

Cibotti was booked into the San Mateo County Jail, according to the release.

Cibotti is out on $150,000 bail and was represented by an attorney at a felony arraignment on Tuesday, according to Bay City News. He is scheduled to appear in court again in late July.

Cibotti faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted, CBS SF reported.

This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 3:40 PM with the headline "Man accused of threatening to shoot family in Black Lives Matter shirts, CA cops say."