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.
