San Francisco police discovered a deceased woman on Monday at the intersection of 23rd and Mission streets.
On Oct. 23 at 9:08 a.m., police officers from Mission Station were “flagged down by a citizen regarding a potential death nearby,” the department said in a statement. An adult woman was seemingly dead on the corner.
Officers called in paramedics, who investigated and declared that the woman had died. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which was at the scene to investigate, said that next of kin had not yet been notified, so it could not release the woman’s identity.
Cesar Oyagata, a vendor who sells accessories near the intersection, said he had seen the woman on Monday morning on the bench in front of Bank of America around 6:30 a.m. She was holding a bottle of alcohol at the time — a common sight, according to other nearby vendors.
Oyagata went to get breakfast nearby and, after he came back, paramedics and around five police officers were at the scene. She had seemingly died in the interim.
Oyagata and other vendors nearby said she could often be seen sitting in the same spot, usually overnight — but never talked to anyone around.
Juana, a vendor who sells jewelry across the street, said she would often see her in the same spot. The woman would be there when Juana left work at the end of the day, and she would be there when she came back early in the morning, Juana said. “No one knows who she is,” she said, in Spanish.
“Almost every day, she was here. She looked really sad. She never talked to anyone,” said Oyagata, in Spanish.
I was at the Kaiser ER last Thursday and there was also a man there with bruises and cuts to his face and head. He was working at a nearby restaurant and tried to stop a mugging of woman on Mission and 16th, and he ended up getting battered. And the worse thing out of this was, he ended up paying over $1000 out of pocket for being seen.
The morgue is doing a brisk business on the Mission alone. This poor soul, for example, is the latest casualty. The man found dead in Dolores Park last week is another. Yesterday we had a shooting at 16th and Mission. There was a fatal shooting nearby two weeks ago. Another woman was stabbed at 16th and Mission and made it to the TL, where passers by called an ambulance. These are just the people I know about; no doubt there are more.