Annie Tritt for The Bay Citizen

Michael Dawson, 20, a former Bayview resident, says he feels less safe when police are around

Last Tuesday, 20-year-old Michael Dawson sat at a computer and watched a young man die. After being shot twice — once by the police — the man, seen on a video, writhed face down in a pool of blood as officers tried to hold back a crowd of outraged bystanders.

“That’s ill, how he’s laying there clawing for his life,” Dawson said, stepping away from the monitor and raising his voice. “That’s police brutality, bro.”

The death of the man, Kenneth Harding, 19, on July 16 in the Bayview district of San Francisco has heightened tensions between the police and residents of the neighborhood, one of the city’s most violent.

It has also highlighted the devastating impact of violence-related trauma on young people in poor urban communities. Two cellphone videos that captured the shooting have logged hundreds of thousands of Internet hits, and Bayview mental health workers have reported seeing more youths with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“They are upset that it was the police, but for a lot of kids what came up is that people are dying a lot, and not just from police officers,” said Dr. Aliya Sheriff, a psychologist at the 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic in the Bayview. “It’s retriggering and retraumatizing a lot of youth who have lost family members before. There’s a feeling of hopelessness.”

Harding was first shot in the leg, and the authorities said that bullet was fired after Harding had fired first. The fatal shot, they said, was to his head and apparently came from his own gun as he fired backward while fleeing.

The incident — in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses along 3rd Street — was part of a spate of violent encounters in which children and teenagers have been hurt or killed in the Bay Area in recent weeks.

In late July, a gunman in Oakland shot at a family of four as they took meals to homeless people. The father was killed. His 3-year-old stepdaughter was shot in the arm.

Just one week earlier, a 20-year-old man was shot to death on a street corner in Richmond, about 150 feet from where dozens of children were playing.

Capt. Mark Gagan of the Richmond Police Department said audio monitors nearby picked up the children’s screams.

“It’s commonplace to hear gunfire,’’ Captain Gagan said, “but to witness a murder is quite different.”