SF Pedestrian Fatalities Hit 10-Year High as On-Duty Officer Strikes, Kills 65-Year-Old

After an on-duty police officer fatally hit a pedestrian last weekend, one pedestrian advocacy group said it is waiting for the San Francisco Police Department and other city leaders to respond to the 10-year high in pedestrian fatalities.

Around 6:20 a.m. Sunday, San Francisco resident Walter Castillo, 65, was hit by an on-duty officer while walking in the Bernal Heights neighborhood near Bayshore Boulevard and Industrial Street.

After receiving medical treatment for life-threatening injuries at the scene, Castillo was transferred to a local hospital, where he died.

SFPD launched an investigation into the incident, but Jodie Medeiros, the executive director of Walk SF, said that it can be very difficult to get justice for victims of traffic violence since the driver is often not charged with a crime.

“The law protects the driver,” Medeiros said. “Lawyers and the law says [it’s] a quote-unquote accident, it was not intentional. If there’s no intentionality, then it is not a crime. This upsets Walk SF. It upsets members of Families for Safe Streets [and] the families left behind after somebody kills their son, their daughter, their mother, their father.”

SFPD is not releasing the name of the officer involved and said the officer is not being placed on administrative leave.

Still, Medeiros hopes that city leaders, many of whom have been quiet thus far, will respond seriously to the incident. Castillo’s death was the 23rd pedestrian fatality in San Francisco this year — the highest number since at least 2014, according to city data.

“It would be great to hear from not only the SFPD but the other decision makers in San Francisco about how they’re going to respond to a year where more pedestrians were killed, more people were killed in traffic crashes in San Francisco than gun violence,” she told KQED.

“We need to hear that something is happening, that things are going to change because it is completely unfair for the people of San Francisco,” Medeiros continued.

KQED’s Dana Cronin contributed to this report.