Untamed
08-30-2006, 10:07 AM
DRIVER'S RAMPAGE
Carnage in the streets of San Francisco
Matthew B. Stannard, Susan Sward and Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writers (mstannard@sfchronicle.com)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
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Hit-And-Run Rampage
Swath of central San Francisco terrorized (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGPOKRNUA71.DTL)
(8/30)
Within half an hour, 14 pedestrians picked off one by one (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRSQC1.DTL)
(8/30)
Newsom: 'No pattern' among victims (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRRQ61.DTL)
(8/30)
Suspect had recently began arranged marriage (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRRQ81.DTL)
(8/30)
The first call to San Francisco police came in Tuesday at 12:47 p.m. -- a shiny black Honda Pilot had just plowed into another vehicle at Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near Civic Center.
It's the kind of routine vehicle accident that police hear about innumerable times every day.
But this smashup was not routine. And it was no accident.
Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot would speed into the hills straddling the Western Addition and Pacific Heights, ripping back and forth through a 15-square-block area like a ripsaw on four wheels, leaping curbs, cutting corners and tearing the wrong way through traffic.
Throughout the chaos, only one thing seemed clear: The driver was on a hunt. A hunt for humans.
The day of carnage apparently began -- and took its worst toll -- in Fremont. A 54-year-old man was walking along the bike lane on Fremont Boulevard, between Ferry Lane and Decoto Road, when a black Honda Pilot sport utility vehicle came up behind him.
According to Fremont police Sgt. Jeff Swadener, the Pilot suddenly slipped into the bike lane, hitting the pedestrian and throwing his body several feet into a field between St. James the Apostle Catholic Church and a boarded-up Victorian house.
"Did the driver swerve on purpose, or was he just fumbling with a cell phone or something and drifted out of the lane? We don't know," Swadener said.
The man died at 11:50 a.m.
Almost precisely one hour later, San Francisco police received the 12:47 p.m. call from Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue, also involving a black Honda Pilot.
The Pilot was next seen on Sacramento and Polk streets, where Norris Song, manager of Sushi Rock, watched the SUV going by at 40-plus mph on Sacramento -- the wrong way.
Norris looked out of his restaurant and saw that the driver had hit a man in his late 20s. People crowded around the man, sitting on the sidewalk, until an ambulance arrived.
Customers shouted: "That guy's crazy!" By the time police and an ambulance arrived, the driver was gone.
Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot was terrorizing the neighborhoods near the Western Addition and Pacific Heights.
At California and Fillmore streets, witnesses said, three people were struck as the Pilot ran a red light and turned south toward Bush Street.
"He was going berserk," said Eliseo Billones Jr., 24.
Dropping south of Bush Street, the Pilot bounced like a mad pinball along the streets and sidewalks, leaving a trail of blood.
Police are still trying to reconstruct the sequence of mayhem, but the locations of the hit-and-run rampage were pieced together through the accounts of police and witnesses.
Police Inspector Rich Alves said that at Webster and Sutter, the driver apparently tried to hit a pedestrian, an older Chinese man, but just clipped him. The victim was taken to the hospital with a hand injury -- one of the lucky ones.
At Frankie's Bohemian Cafe, at Pine and Divisadero, the sound of thumps turned bartender Dan Fulford's head.
Outside, he saw a woman down in the crosswalk, weeping. Across the street at the 24 bus stop, a man lay in the gutter, holding the back of his head; another man held a license plate and watched the Pilot speed away.
"Everybody was standing around, kind of in shock," Fulford said. "We thought it was a regular hit-and-run."
Customers called 911 as they trickled outside, joining a growing crowd that soon spilled off into the street -- safe in the assumption that lightning doesn't strike twice.
"We thought it was all over," said Max Bran, a regular. "Hit and run -- he's gonna get caught."
Not yet.
The Pilot also struck two women outside the Palm Tree Cafe at Bush and Divisadero streets, said owner Mai Ichikawa.
Larry Jackson saw the Pilot heading east on Bush Street, approaching a red light as a woman was crossing the street in the crosswalk.
"He let her go by till she got in front and then he just punched it,'' speeding up and knocking her down, he said. Jackson attended to the woman, who didn't appear badly hurt, as the driver sped away.
The nightmare multiplied at Sutter and Steiner, where witnesses said two men were struck as they walked across the street. As would-be rescuers tried to help, the Pilot came back through the intersection -- in an apparent attempt to hit the two men again.
And then a third time, before speeding away.
"It was just like he came back to finish the work," said witness Benny Praditkul, who works on Neecha Thai restaurant at the corner of Sutter and Steiner.
A doctor dining in the restaurant ran out to help the men who were by then lying on the curb. Both men were conscious and crying. They were taken away in an ambulance.
The Pilot rocketed north on Fillmore, past a beauty salon where stylist Linda Tuttle recalled the driver sitting close to the steering wheel, dressed like a businessman, his face angry.
Amy Yoo, who owns the Trio Cafe next door, said the SUV drove by on the sidewalk, then turned left at Bush going the wrong way, back toward Larry Jackson and the crowds growing outside Frankie's Bohemian Cafe.
Barclay Lynn, 39, of San Francisco, said she and a friend were driving east on Bush when they saw a black SUV driving away from a motorcyclist who had been hit at the intersection of Bush and Fillmore.
"The motorcyclist stood in the intersection trying to signal the driver to stop,'' Lynn said. The SUV then "went speeding ... on Bush heading west, weaving in and out of traffic.''
The Pilot roared toward the intersection of Bush and California, its windshield caved in, its front and side smashed, according to witnesses.
"I was in my car coming south on Fillmore and the light turned green," said DuWyane Thomas, 29.
"Two seconds after my car was in the intersection I saw the SUV coming 35 or 40 miles an hour and hit the man in the crosswalk. His body was thrown 25 feet," he said. "His body stuck to the grille of the car and was tossed off as the car turned right. If the guy had not turned right I believe this guy would have been run over completely."
The Pilot roared north on Pine, where Bohemian Cafe bartender Fulford and his regulars began to realize something was wrong as they saw people running north, screaming warnings.
"There he is! It's the car! It's coming this way!" witnesses cried.
An ambulance had already arrived to assist the earlier victims, said Bran, one of the Frankie's regulars. It was parked by the island, traffic backing up behind. The Pilot swerved into the bus lane.
"We thought he was going to stop but instead he just stepped on the gas," Bran said. "It didn't matter, regardless of the lights."
With people scrambling to escape its path, the Pilot tore north past the ambulance, sideswiping newspaper boxes and sending them tumbling into the street. As it pulled alongside the restaurant, Fulford looked outside, and his eyes met the driver's.
"He looked at us as he went flying by," he said. "He looked right at us."
The Pilot roared north, then turned west on California Street, striking two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street at Presidio Avenue. Their blood remained on the sidewalk later, and a mangled bicycle lay 50 feet farther down the sidewalk.
Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m.
But the driver was still on the loose.
Moments later, the Pilot roared through a red light and turned left, narrowly missing a man as he crossed the street at California and Spruce.
"It was just by a couple of inches,'' said architect Jeremy Warms. "Then the car came down the opposite way down Spruce and the police converged in on him all at once.''
Warms said the police blocked the man's path and he heard a crashing sound -- police said one officer was slightly injured in the collision. Then the officers pulled the man out of the car and sat him down on the curb.
"He looked calm and pretty clean-cut, like a normal guy,'' Warms said. "He sat on the pavement for a good 25 minutes ... I don't think anyone said anything to him. They put him in a police car and took him away.''
The office manager at a dental office at 500 Spruce St., who identified herself only as Kira, saw the arrest from a second-floor window.
"They dragged him out and put him on the ground. They got him up. He was absolutely indifferent, no fear, no expression. He was like a zombie.''
She said he was bald, with a mustache, wearing a gray sport jacket. He showed no sign of injury. Police identified him as Omeed Aziz Popal, 29, of Fremont, and said he would be booked on 14 counts of attempted murder.
In addition to the man killed in Fremont, several in San Francisco remained hospitalized, two in serious or critical condition. But others were fortunate, including Jesse, a young man who walked out of San Francisco General Hospital at 4:30 p.m., a smile splitting the slight beard on his face. "I'm lucky to be alive," he said. "Life's good."
Carnage in the streets of San Francisco
Matthew B. Stannard, Susan Sward and Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writers (mstannard@sfchronicle.com)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/08/30_t/mn_hitandrun_266_mac_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&o=0) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/08/30_t/ba_hitandrun_005_lm_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&o=1) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/08/30_t/ba_hitandrun_004_lm_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&o=2) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/08/30_t/ba_hitandrun_006_lm_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&o=3) More... (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&o=4)
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Email This Article (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/30/NARRATIVE.TMP&type=friend&emailcolor=%236CF752&origin=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D%2Fc%2Fa%2F2006%2F08%2F30%2FNARR ATIVE.TMP)
Hit-And-Run Rampage
Swath of central San Francisco terrorized (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGPOKRNUA71.DTL)
(8/30)
Within half an hour, 14 pedestrians picked off one by one (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRSQC1.DTL)
(8/30)
Newsom: 'No pattern' among victims (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRRQ61.DTL)
(8/30)
Suspect had recently began arranged marriage (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRRQ81.DTL)
(8/30)
The first call to San Francisco police came in Tuesday at 12:47 p.m. -- a shiny black Honda Pilot had just plowed into another vehicle at Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near Civic Center.
It's the kind of routine vehicle accident that police hear about innumerable times every day.
But this smashup was not routine. And it was no accident.
Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot would speed into the hills straddling the Western Addition and Pacific Heights, ripping back and forth through a 15-square-block area like a ripsaw on four wheels, leaping curbs, cutting corners and tearing the wrong way through traffic.
Throughout the chaos, only one thing seemed clear: The driver was on a hunt. A hunt for humans.
The day of carnage apparently began -- and took its worst toll -- in Fremont. A 54-year-old man was walking along the bike lane on Fremont Boulevard, between Ferry Lane and Decoto Road, when a black Honda Pilot sport utility vehicle came up behind him.
According to Fremont police Sgt. Jeff Swadener, the Pilot suddenly slipped into the bike lane, hitting the pedestrian and throwing his body several feet into a field between St. James the Apostle Catholic Church and a boarded-up Victorian house.
"Did the driver swerve on purpose, or was he just fumbling with a cell phone or something and drifted out of the lane? We don't know," Swadener said.
The man died at 11:50 a.m.
Almost precisely one hour later, San Francisco police received the 12:47 p.m. call from Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue, also involving a black Honda Pilot.
The Pilot was next seen on Sacramento and Polk streets, where Norris Song, manager of Sushi Rock, watched the SUV going by at 40-plus mph on Sacramento -- the wrong way.
Norris looked out of his restaurant and saw that the driver had hit a man in his late 20s. People crowded around the man, sitting on the sidewalk, until an ambulance arrived.
Customers shouted: "That guy's crazy!" By the time police and an ambulance arrived, the driver was gone.
Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot was terrorizing the neighborhoods near the Western Addition and Pacific Heights.
At California and Fillmore streets, witnesses said, three people were struck as the Pilot ran a red light and turned south toward Bush Street.
"He was going berserk," said Eliseo Billones Jr., 24.
Dropping south of Bush Street, the Pilot bounced like a mad pinball along the streets and sidewalks, leaving a trail of blood.
Police are still trying to reconstruct the sequence of mayhem, but the locations of the hit-and-run rampage were pieced together through the accounts of police and witnesses.
Police Inspector Rich Alves said that at Webster and Sutter, the driver apparently tried to hit a pedestrian, an older Chinese man, but just clipped him. The victim was taken to the hospital with a hand injury -- one of the lucky ones.
At Frankie's Bohemian Cafe, at Pine and Divisadero, the sound of thumps turned bartender Dan Fulford's head.
Outside, he saw a woman down in the crosswalk, weeping. Across the street at the 24 bus stop, a man lay in the gutter, holding the back of his head; another man held a license plate and watched the Pilot speed away.
"Everybody was standing around, kind of in shock," Fulford said. "We thought it was a regular hit-and-run."
Customers called 911 as they trickled outside, joining a growing crowd that soon spilled off into the street -- safe in the assumption that lightning doesn't strike twice.
"We thought it was all over," said Max Bran, a regular. "Hit and run -- he's gonna get caught."
Not yet.
The Pilot also struck two women outside the Palm Tree Cafe at Bush and Divisadero streets, said owner Mai Ichikawa.
Larry Jackson saw the Pilot heading east on Bush Street, approaching a red light as a woman was crossing the street in the crosswalk.
"He let her go by till she got in front and then he just punched it,'' speeding up and knocking her down, he said. Jackson attended to the woman, who didn't appear badly hurt, as the driver sped away.
The nightmare multiplied at Sutter and Steiner, where witnesses said two men were struck as they walked across the street. As would-be rescuers tried to help, the Pilot came back through the intersection -- in an apparent attempt to hit the two men again.
And then a third time, before speeding away.
"It was just like he came back to finish the work," said witness Benny Praditkul, who works on Neecha Thai restaurant at the corner of Sutter and Steiner.
A doctor dining in the restaurant ran out to help the men who were by then lying on the curb. Both men were conscious and crying. They were taken away in an ambulance.
The Pilot rocketed north on Fillmore, past a beauty salon where stylist Linda Tuttle recalled the driver sitting close to the steering wheel, dressed like a businessman, his face angry.
Amy Yoo, who owns the Trio Cafe next door, said the SUV drove by on the sidewalk, then turned left at Bush going the wrong way, back toward Larry Jackson and the crowds growing outside Frankie's Bohemian Cafe.
Barclay Lynn, 39, of San Francisco, said she and a friend were driving east on Bush when they saw a black SUV driving away from a motorcyclist who had been hit at the intersection of Bush and Fillmore.
"The motorcyclist stood in the intersection trying to signal the driver to stop,'' Lynn said. The SUV then "went speeding ... on Bush heading west, weaving in and out of traffic.''
The Pilot roared toward the intersection of Bush and California, its windshield caved in, its front and side smashed, according to witnesses.
"I was in my car coming south on Fillmore and the light turned green," said DuWyane Thomas, 29.
"Two seconds after my car was in the intersection I saw the SUV coming 35 or 40 miles an hour and hit the man in the crosswalk. His body was thrown 25 feet," he said. "His body stuck to the grille of the car and was tossed off as the car turned right. If the guy had not turned right I believe this guy would have been run over completely."
The Pilot roared north on Pine, where Bohemian Cafe bartender Fulford and his regulars began to realize something was wrong as they saw people running north, screaming warnings.
"There he is! It's the car! It's coming this way!" witnesses cried.
An ambulance had already arrived to assist the earlier victims, said Bran, one of the Frankie's regulars. It was parked by the island, traffic backing up behind. The Pilot swerved into the bus lane.
"We thought he was going to stop but instead he just stepped on the gas," Bran said. "It didn't matter, regardless of the lights."
With people scrambling to escape its path, the Pilot tore north past the ambulance, sideswiping newspaper boxes and sending them tumbling into the street. As it pulled alongside the restaurant, Fulford looked outside, and his eyes met the driver's.
"He looked at us as he went flying by," he said. "He looked right at us."
The Pilot roared north, then turned west on California Street, striking two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street at Presidio Avenue. Their blood remained on the sidewalk later, and a mangled bicycle lay 50 feet farther down the sidewalk.
Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m.
But the driver was still on the loose.
Moments later, the Pilot roared through a red light and turned left, narrowly missing a man as he crossed the street at California and Spruce.
"It was just by a couple of inches,'' said architect Jeremy Warms. "Then the car came down the opposite way down Spruce and the police converged in on him all at once.''
Warms said the police blocked the man's path and he heard a crashing sound -- police said one officer was slightly injured in the collision. Then the officers pulled the man out of the car and sat him down on the curb.
"He looked calm and pretty clean-cut, like a normal guy,'' Warms said. "He sat on the pavement for a good 25 minutes ... I don't think anyone said anything to him. They put him in a police car and took him away.''
The office manager at a dental office at 500 Spruce St., who identified herself only as Kira, saw the arrest from a second-floor window.
"They dragged him out and put him on the ground. They got him up. He was absolutely indifferent, no fear, no expression. He was like a zombie.''
She said he was bald, with a mustache, wearing a gray sport jacket. He showed no sign of injury. Police identified him as Omeed Aziz Popal, 29, of Fremont, and said he would be booked on 14 counts of attempted murder.
In addition to the man killed in Fremont, several in San Francisco remained hospitalized, two in serious or critical condition. But others were fortunate, including Jesse, a young man who walked out of San Francisco General Hospital at 4:30 p.m., a smile splitting the slight beard on his face. "I'm lucky to be alive," he said. "Life's good."