A car apparently trying to evade police crashed into an outdoor dining parklet in San Francisco’s Mission district where people were watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, sending six people to the hospital.
Two were critically injured, and four suffered moderate injuries when the vehicle struck the parklet at The Napper Tandy Irish pub near 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue shortly after 3:30 p.m., a San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson told The Standard.
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All six were transported by ambulance to hospitals. Fire crews, including an engine, truck, and rescue unit, responded to the scene.
Emergency services personnel redirected traffic around the crash site on 24th Street while treating the injured.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
Police said the driver was fleeing the scene of a burglary around Buckingham Way and Winston Drive, where officers responded at 3:05 p.m. Cops tried to stop the car, but the driver failed to yield, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department.
A chase ensued, leading cops nearly seven miles, from around Stonestown Mall to a pub in the Mission.
“The vehicle eventually stopped at 24th and S. Van Ness where it collided into a parklet,” SFPD Officer Robert Rueca said. “The vehicle struck two people in the parklet [who] suffered non-life threatening injuries, for which they were transported to the hospital.”
Officers detained the vehicle’s occupants and arrested two women.
A bystander said at least a few cop cars were tailing the driver.
“Yeah, there was definitely a chase,” Peter Paulson told reporters about an hour after the crash.
Paulson, who lives near the bar, said he and his wife almost sat in the shaded dining area, but some in his party wanted to sit in the sun.
“That was our saving grace,” he said.
“I was really focused on the game,” he added. “I just heard the tires squeal out. I didn’t hear any cop sirens. … Maybe they saw the cops and got spooked. Maybe they had some reason to not want to be around them and then sped away.”
Supervisor Jackie Fielder, whose district encompasses the Mission, said a child was endangered, which makes the situation critical.
“We don’t have all the details of the reasons for the vehicle pursuit by police,” she told The Standard at the scene. “But if it is a result of a pursuit for something less than a violent incident or a direct imminent threat to people’s lives, It’s worth asking whether this is worth sending six people to the hospital.”
Terence Buckner, a city worker who’d left the parklet just minutes before a car barreled into it, echoed the sentiment.
“They need to slow down,” he said. “Like, I said, they’re able to cut that chase off. Some lives would have been saved”
Buckner said he was sitting with a couple and their child at the outdoor dining area before he got up to go back inside and watch the game. Not 10 minutes later, he said he saw the car racing toward the restaurant.
“It was on three wheels,” he recounted. “One of the wheels was on fire. The passenger wheel on the front was on fire, literally.”
Buckner said a car show or automotive exhibition at the intersection had damaged the parklet about a year ago, and that the dining area had just been rebuilt.
The crash is the latest in a series of vehicular collisions that have damaged Mission District bars and restaurants, including a Jan. 15 collision at the corner of Valencia and 26th streets that damaged the exterior of Dovre Club and left two people with minor injuries.
Separate collisions since November have damaged a Walgreens at 24th Street and Potrero Avenue, a grocery store at 26th and Guerrero streets, and a houseplant store at 21st and San Carlos streets.