The pedestrian struck and killed by a vehicle in San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery parking lot Monday has been named by officials.
Authorities said the fatal crash occurred around 2:50 p.m. at the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative located at 1745 Folsom St. Officers and paramedics administered emergency medical aid to the person, who was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.
The pedestrian was later identified as Timothy Waters, 74, of San Francisco, according to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.
Police said the driver struck multiple vehicles during the incident, though the person stayed with their vehicle at the scene afterward and cooperated with the investigation.
They added that drugs or alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the crash.
Carolyn Keddy, a board member for Rainbow Grocery, confirmed that the fatal collision took place in the store’s lot.
“We’re shaken up, but we’re doing OK,” Keddy told The Standard.
She declined to comment further.
On Wednesday, pedestrian Dandelion Whaley told The Standard that “I was right there right after it happened. I saw the person under the car, but I did not see them hit. The people around me were so shaken.”
Whaley, who recently moved to San Francisco from Berkeley, said she thought city officials should install bollards, barriers and other architecture to increase pedestrian safety.
“We need more of those. They’ve been known to work in other cities,” she said. “Also, people are stressed out, so they’re driving stressed out.”
San Francisco resident Lilly Cook, who was in the parking lot when the crash happened, said she was still in shock days after the incident.
“I was parking my car in the lot, and I had just turned off my engine when I heard a huge noise that sounded like a bomb going off,” Cook told The Standard on Thursday.
“It was really something,” Cook said of the driver. “He hit two or three other cars, and I was the last one to get hit. I heard someone say a person was under a car.”
Cook said her blue Lexus was lightly scratched but didn’t need to get towed away like other cars that were struck and more heavily damaged.
She said her husband managed to recover her car from a garage after two days: “I was really shaking. For two or three days, I still have a hard time after. I couldn’t sleep the first night.”
Barbara Baumann, another Rainbow board member, said Thursday that the grocery would not make any public statement out of respect for involved individuals, families and community members.
As of the end of October, the most recent data available, 21 traffic deaths had occurred in San Francisco in 2023. In 2022, the city saw a total of 39 fatal crashes—the most recorded since officials began collecting data in 2014 for San Francisco’s Vision Zero project, which aims to end traffic deaths citywide.
On Thursday, the Office of the Medical Examiner corrected the man’s name it initially provided as Water, changing it to Waters.