Streetsblog San Francisco

Photo: Sally Khim

Criminal charges may be brought against the taxi driver who killed pedestrian Edmund Cappalla on August 11 at Eddy and Larkin Streets, according to Denis O’Leary, head of the SFPD Traffic Company. SFPD investigators reportedly submitted the case to the District Attorney’s office last Wednesday.

While it’s not known which charges the DA could file, O’Leary said in an e-mail that the SFPD “will not charge the driver with the infractions of running a red light or failing to yield to a pedestrian as those are lesser included offenses of the charge of vehicular manslaughter and citing the driver for those infractions would compromise a future prosecution.”

A request for comment from the DA’s office was not returned as of press time.

“Walk SF and its members are very pleased to see the fast response from the police and certainly look forward to equally swift action from the District Attorney,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe in response to the SFPD statements. “It’s important to make clear that it’s not OK to run a red light and kill a person on San Francisco streets.”

O’Leary said investigators confirmed reports that the driver of the taxi van ran a red light while traveling east on Eddy, when he was hit by another driver traveling north on Larkin (through a green light), causing the taxi to spin and strike Cappalla in a crosswalk along Larkin.

“There were at least ten witnesses who remained at the scene. A video of part of the collision was found at a nearby surveillance camera and was seized as evidence,” O’Leary said. ”The van was impounded. There was no indication of intoxication on the part of the van’s driver.”

O’Leary also noted that officers from the Traffic Company and the local Northern Station “will increase their vigilance in protecting pedestrians in the neighborhood of Eddy and Larkin Streets.” O’Leary said he couldn’t provide the taxi driver’s name “as doing so could compromise the investigation and jeopardize the prosecution.”

Photos: Sally Khim

Police are still looking into whether charges could be filed against the taxi driver who allegedly ran a red light at Eddy and Larkin Streets Saturday, causing a car crash that killed pedestrian Edmund Capalla, the SF Examiner reports. The driver has reportedly yet to be arrested or cited.

“We have to see if he was negligent,” SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza told the Examiner. “He may have had a medical emergency, I don’t know.” Esparza called the crash a “heartbreaking accident,” adding that it “could have been prevented if laws had been obeyed.”

Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe said “the police should be telling us what actually happened, not speculating on excuses for the driver.”

“We know there was a medical emergency: Edmund Capalla was hit and killed while walking,” she said. “We expect solid information from the police about how this occurred. Walk SF and its members want to see swift action on this case from the police and, if appropriate, from the District Attorney’s office.”

Christina Siadat and Sally Khim were at a store on Larkin when they heard the crash. “We ran outside and saw the red car on the pole,” Siadat told Streetsblog. “We walked around the corner and there was the man lying face down with shattered glass.”

Siadat said a clerk at a corner store confirmed reports that the taxi driver ran a red light when the driver of the red car, who had a green light, hit the taxi, causing it to slam into Capalla, who was crossing the street. “The clerk said that the cab driver was sitting on the curb with his head in his hands,” she said.

The crash occurred just before 7 p.m., during daylight hours. Capalla, who died at San Francisco General Hospital, was the eleventh known pedestrian killed in the city this year.

The driver of the red car, who reportedly entered the intersection with a green light, hit the taxi before running into a pole. Siadat said she and Khim didn't notice the taxi at the time.

No charges were filed in the death of Lourdes Richman, 71, in a crosswalk at Townsend and Second Streets. Photo: Greg Janess

Updated 8 p.m.

As Streetsblog has reported, when a sober automobile driver strikes and kills a pedestrian in San Francisco and stays at the scene, charges are rarely filed. While evidence suggests motorists’ failure to yield is responsible for a plurality of pedestrian injuries in the city, new information furnished by the SF District Attorney’s office shows that few drivers who kill face charges unless they are drunk or flee the scene.

According to the DA’s office, of the 17 pedestrian deaths in 2011, 10 were presented by SFPD to the DA for investigation. Of those 10, the DA filed charges in seven cases.

Here is the list of people charged provided by the DA’s office:

• Jose Jimenez, a drunk driver who fled after killing James Hudson on Masonic Avenue
• Wallace Loggins, a Muni driver who killed Emily Dunn in the Castro
• Updated: Juan Martinez, a driver who fled after killing Eddy Mendez on a traffic island at Potrero and Cesar Chavez
• Randolph Ang, a bicycle rider who killed Dionette Cherney on the Embarcadero
• Gregg Wilcox, a driver who killed William Cox at 14th and Noe Streets while wearing a cast
• Updated: Terry Chan, a driver who killed Helen Tam — more info not immediately available
• Updated: En Lin – currently in federal prison, but ”arrest warrant prepared” for killing Aurora Venida at Geary and Arguello

Of the cases we know about, the only drivers who were sober and stayed at the scene are En Lin, who killed Aurora Venida in a crosswalk at Geary Arguello Boulevards; Gregg Wilcox, who was wearing a cast on his leg while driving; and Wallace Loggins, a Muni driver. It’s also worth noting that the DA charged Wallace Richardson, a UCSF shuttle driver who killed Professor Kevin Mack, his passenger, when he crashed into a big rig when running a red light at Octavia Boulevard and Oak Street.

Read more…

SF District Attorney George Gascón told reporters today that the reason so few drivers are charged in pedestrian injuries and fatalities is that “in the majority of those cases, unfortunately, the pedestrian has been the one deemed to be at fault.”

District Attorney George Gascón. Photo: Matthew Roth

“That’s why I keep saying, and I will keep saying it again, and again, and again: The rules of the road apply equally to everyone, whether you’re driving a car, riding a bicycle, walking, or riding a skateboard — it doesn’t matter, a red light means that you stop,” said Gascón.

However, according to a 2009 SFMTA collision report [PDF], the most recent one available, pedestrian violations “were determined to be the cause of about a third of the total vehicle-pedestrian collisions” in 2008, while “the plurality (42 percent) was caused by a violation of the pedestrian right-of-way on the part of the motorist.”

The report also noted that “while driving at unsafe speeds is not a frequently listed primary collision cause for vehicle-pedestrian collisions, it can be a contributing factor both in causing collisions and in increasing their severity.”

Even Chronicle columnist and former pedestrian victim-blamer C.W. Nevius recently conceded that “it is pretty hard to escape the conclusion — it’s the drivers’ fault.”

Furthermore, street safety advocates question the readiness to hold pedestrians to the same standard as the operators of fast, multi-ton vehicles. (As Peter Norton documented in his book Fighting Traffic, public attitudes toward pedestrian fatalities used to hold motorists accountable for such violence on crowded city streets; it was not until the 1930′s that the concept of “jaywalking” was invented.)

“I guarantee you that we review every case closely, and if a motorist is wrong and they’re violating the law, they will be prosecuted,” Gascón said of the 876 pedestrians reported injured and the 17 killed in San Francisco last year. “We are prosecuting motorists that were not drunk, that were negligent, and that resulted in a death.”

Gascón did recently break a longstanding pattern in San Francisco of not charging drivers who weren’t drunk or caught fleeing the scene. He prosecuted three drivers and a bicyclist for lethal negligence in 2011 traffic fatalities. All of those charges were misdemeanors. Yesterday the DA filed felony manslaughter charges against Chris Bucchere for biking into and killing Sutchi Hui, but Gascón could not say whether any drivers might be charged in the other known deaths of six pedestrians and a bicyclist this year.

When asked specifically about the cases of Sena Putra and Robert Yegge – both killed within the last month by truck drivers whom police deemed to be at fault — Gascón said he wasn’t aware of them. The difference between the Bucchere/Hui case is stark. Within three weeks of Hui’s death, Gascón told the media that he “definitely” planned to file manslaughter charges against Bucchere.

The DA’s office says they only prosecute cases handed off to the them by SFPD. On Monday Streetsblog asked for a list of pedestrian fatality cases presented to Gascón this year. The DA’s office said it may take a few more days to complete in order to ensure accuracy.

A pedestrian injured by two drivers at 19th and Valencia Streets last month, one of the more than 800 hit every year in San Francisco -- the vast majority by drivers. Photo: Mission Local

SF District Attorney George Gascón is set to bring felony vehicular manslaughter charges against Chris Bucchere later today for biking into 71-year-old Sutchi Hui in a crosswalk at Castro and Market Streets, killing him. Any traffic death on our streets deserves a thorough investigation with appropriate charges filed against the responsible party. But this high-profile case raises the question of why so few other perpetrators of traffic violence face similar repercussions.

So far, six other pedestrians are known to have been killed in San Francisco this year. SFPD and the DA have not drawn nearly the same level of public scrutiny to those cases as they have to the Bucchere/Hui case. The media, meanwhile, is captivated. The most visible difference setting Bucchere’s case apart, of course, is that he was riding a bike when he killed Hui, while the people who killed the six other victims were driving motor vehicles.

SFPD Chief Greg Suhr (right) and SF District Attorney George Gascón. Photo: ABC News

All pedestrians who are injured on SF streets (876 in 2011) and the survivors of those who are killed (17 victims last year) deserve thorough investigations and appropriate actions from law enforcement agencies to deter dangerous behavior, regardless of the mode of travel of the perpetrator. But the DA and SFPD don’t display the same zeal for prosecuting drivers who kill (save those who are drunk or flee the scene) as they have for Bucchere.

Gascón and the SFPD have improved their record in recent months by charging a few such drivers in 2011 cases — but with misdemeanors, not felonies. Spokesperson Stephanie Ong Stillman argues that the DA’s office has given fair attention to cases that the SFPD has brought before it.

However, the SFPD apparently doesn’t treat all traffic fatalities equally, even in cases where police investigators determine the driver to be at fault. So far, there has been no action against the drivers responsible for the deaths of 47-year-old Sena Putra and 22-year-old Robert Yegge — both of whom were killed within the last month by truck drivers whom the SFPD says failed to yield. The evidence that the drivers who killed Putra and Yegge violated the law seems comparable, if not stronger, than the evidence in the Bucchere case, yet there is no word that the department will seek charges. (Streetsblog has requested a list of pedestrian fatalities presented by the SFPD to the DA’s office for investigation this year. DA staff said it is compiling the list, but we have not received it as we go to press.)

Read more…

The intersection of Market and Octavia -- one of the most dangerous in San Francisco for cyclists. Flickr photo: sfbike

Safe streets advocates often ruefully say, "if you want to kill someone and get away with it, do it in a car." In fact, unless alcohol is involved, very few motorists who kill vulnerable road users -- like pedestrians and cyclists -- are charged with a crime, even when they break traffic laws in the process.

Even the word "accident" drives traffic justice advocates to distraction, since it implies a lack of agency, as though drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks and mow them down aren't culpable for their actions.

Despite the fact that more people in America die from car crashes than from handguns, few policy makers or law enforcement officials are willing to equate the danger of car death with gun death.

Now, that hesitance has stalled a bill that could make California's streets safer.

In an attempt to deter dangerous driving, California Assembly Bill 1951, introduced by San Francisco Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, would significantly bolster penalties for dangerous driving and would give district attorneys greater discretion in pursuing traffic justice cases. Currently, unsafe operation of a motor vehicle carries a fine of $70 if it results in bodily injury, and $95 for "great bodily injury."

Under Ammiano's bill, DAs could charge unsafe driving as either an infraction or a misdemeanor for bodily or great bodily injury and could seek "imprisonment in a county jail for not less than 5 days and not more than 90 days, or by a fine of not less than $145 and not more than $1,000, or by both a fine and imprisonment."

But Ammiano couldn't get the bill out of committee yesterday, where, perhaps ironically, the California District Attorneys Association (CDAA) voiced its opposition. That gave committee members an easy out, said the bill's supporters.