District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced today that she is charging the two suspects who crashed an SUV into the Napper Tandy’s parklet on Sunday during a police chase, injuring six people.
Taylor Ross, 27, was charged with 24 counts related to evading an officer, reckless driving, theft of a vehicle and a hit and run. Eureeka Abrams, 29, was charged with two counts of resisting, obstructing, or delaying a peace officer.
“What should have been a routine felony vehicle stop escalated into Ms. Ross and Ms. Abrams putting innocent lives at risk due to their actions,” Jenkins said in a press statement.
“My office will now do everything we can to ensure that Ms. Ross and Ms. Abrams are held accountable, and that there are consequences for their futile effort to evade the law that put countless lives in danger,” she added.
On Sunday, police officers responded to what they described as a “burglary in progress” involving a stolen Audi Q7 near Stonestown Mall. Officers attempted a traffic stop, but the suspects fled, and police pursued them. That pursuit ended when the Audi SUV crashed into a Napper Tandy parklet at 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue during the Super Bowl. Six people were injured, including a mother and daughter. All are expected to survive.
Following an attempted traffic stop, Ross, who was in the driver’s seat, allegedly “drove away at a high rate of speed and led officers to a pursuit,” the statement read. Abrams was in the passenger seat, and an unknown female passenger was in the back of the car.
Ross, Jenkins said, continued to weave in and out of traffic, on Muni tracks and onto Interstate 280, until the San Jose Avenue exit. The DA’s statement cites further damage the SUV caused along the way while pursued by officers: Ross hit the side mirror of a truck, crashed into a traffic light and hit another vehicle on the road.
At 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue, Ross purportedly drove into the opposite lane of traffic to get around stopped traffic, crashing into and destroying the parklet at the Napper Tandy.
Police sources told Mission Local that the Sunday pursuit was within the police department’s new car chase policy: After the passage of Proposition E in March 2024, police were given broader leeway to initiate vehicular pursuits regarding property crimes, where they were previously only allowed to pursue after violent incidents.
Even before Prop. E, police chases were dangerous. In 2021, 52 people were killed in California during police chases, according to the California Highway Patrol. Out of 12,513 pursuits in 2021, 20 percent resulted in crashes and 35 percent resulted in injury.
The pursuit and arrest of alleged serial thieves was the exact scenario posited by proponents of Prop. E to support its passage. A crosstown, dangerous chase culminating in a violent crash was also the exact scenario posited by opponents of Prop. E. In March 2024, 54 percent of voters approved Prop. E.
On Tuesday, District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder sent a letter of inquiry to the police department to better understand the circumstances prompting the pursuit. “Public safety requires holding all people accountable for the harm they cause, no matter who causes it,” Fielder wrote.
Normal people: Why were these career criminals out on the streets?
Mission Local: How DARE the police chase them!?!
Huh? Two things can be true. Should these two be “out on the streets”? I don’t know. Should the police have gotten into a high-speed pursuit? Emphatically, no. Surely there is a way for them to tail the vehicle from afar or deploy an immobilization tactic. I refuse to believe that a high-speed pursuit through a crowded city is this best course of action here.
This false dichotomy of living conditions (either the police get free rein or we live in a lawless land) is becoming so tiresome. Can we start thinking critically?
Was at the Napper Tandy last night. One of the best trivia nights in the city. Harder to find a waterhole more representative of All of San Francisco. Every walk of life sitting shoulder to shoulder. Lots of talk about this situation and focus was on why were these two career criminals out in the first place?
Now let’s see if the judge lets them out on their own recognizance despite their history of criminal activity and failing to show up for hearings.
This has to be a remand situation, not least because there were no-bail warrants outstanding.
I am flabbergasted by Supervisor Fielder’s official inquiry in to the horrific crimes committed by Tyler Ross and Eureeka Adams – who no doubt – will slither back through the revolving doors of 855 Bryant cloaked with their new found court-sanctioned-taxpayer-funded post-mitigation identities as troubled Audi-loving kids just out for a joy ride. Read Ms. Fielder’s 581 word and you might not even know that car theft is a serious crime. In fact, she’s never mentions the thieves. Instead, her fanciful flight of naïveté reflexively assumes that the wrongdoers here must be the police and/or the laws that allow them to pursue fleeing felons. That is it – nothing else to see here – the cops are all bad, the 54% that voted for Prop E are uniformed and car thieves should get counseling or maybe even a guaranteed income to quash their criminal urges. The next time this happens – and it will – we would do well to recall Ms. Fielder’s grotesque failure to put the blame where it belongs – on the criminals. Indeed, “recall Ms. Fielder”, why, I like the ring of that.
Why is Jackie concerned about why these criminals were stealing and evading police
How much will the decision by SFPD to go cowboy and cause the injury of a handful of people, side swiping of a car and the destruction of a parklet cost taxpayers?
Rest assured, these moneys will come from the general fund, not the SFPD budget. If settlements came from SFPD’s budget with a diminution of cop salaries to cover them, then we’d see the kind of more careful attention to detail that we pay SFPD good money for.
Sorry Marcos but you are in the minority with your way of thinking
Marc,
You could say, “Have a nice day.” and get downvoted here.
lol
The talking point of the Moderate posters on this one is “career criminals” which justifies the cops going to afterburners to risk citizen lives trying to catch young joy riders in a stolen car.
Chief Scott said he thought the department’s DGO on auto pursuit was adequate when it returned 38% crashes BEFORE Prop E took the governor off the carburetor.
Do these new vehicles even have a carburetor ?
How do you governor speed in a Tesla ?
lol
go Niners !!
h.