On Tuesday, Jessica Youngsmith, Peter Fleming, and their 4-year-old were picking up their youngest child from daycare before heading home to celebrate the couple’s eighth wedding anniversary.
The party was canceled, though, after a Jeep driver fleeing police hit their car at Golden Gate Avenue and Polk Street, while their 4-year-old was in the back seat.
No one was injured, and the family’s Prius, while damaged, avoided serious harm. But Youngsmith’s experience dealing with the fallout of the Jeep collision left her frustrated — and concerned about a growing appetite in San Francisco for police chases. Following the crash, Youngsmith and her family ended up waiting two hours on Polk Street for assistance as police officers milled about. She is considering filing a complaint with the Department of Police Accountability.
“I was taken aback by the response, because I had anticipated that this would be something that would be more alarming to them,” said Youngsmith. In an email to San Francisco police officials, she called the reaction she received from police officers “inexplicably callous.”
With the passage of Proposition E in March, voters have greenlit an expansion of police chases for lower-level crimes, which could mean more collateral damage — including injury or death. Asked for details about the crime and ensuing chase this week, SFPD spokesperson Officer Paulina Henderson said she was “unable to locate a call for service or incident report at this time.”
On Sept. 3, Youngsmith had gotten out of the car to pick up her 16-month old son from daycare near Golden Gate and Polk. Fleming, along with their 4-year-old daughter, drove to meet Youngsmith and their son around the corner. At the intersection, Fleming realized a red Jeep being pursued by officers was stuck behind him and another car.
Fleming tried to drive out of the way, and the Jeep pushed through the intersection, hitting the Prius less than two feet from where his 4-year-old daughter sat in the back seat. After Fleming pulled over and the family was reunited, Youngsmith decided to notify police officers who were beginning to block off the area of Polk Street.
“I saw the damage to the car … and I thought, ‘this is so dangerous and so scary,’” said Youngsmith. “I thought the police officers, who are clearly responding to whatever this is, should know and would be interested in knowing that this happened.” The family, meanwhile, also needed a police report for their car insurance.
But officers did not take the family’s statement on the scene; the couple, instead of heading home for their family celebration, were told to wait. And so they waited in the street with their two small children as multiple police cars of officers that were gathered there left the scene one by one.
Fleming said in the aftermath of the collision, he felt guilty. “I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to not move and help block him in so they didn’t go on to hit someone else,” Fleming said. “And part of me felt guilty for not getting out of the way fast enough and still getting hit with my daughter in the back of the car.”
Youngsmith and Fleming also called the non-emergency police line, and were told that officers were busy with the pursuit of the stolen Jeep, and that they should continue waiting.
Fleming said he was confused, though: “It felt like they couldn’t talk to us because the chase was till on, but they were parked there, not in the chase,” he said. “So I wasn’t sure why they couldn’t talk to me.”
As the last officers left, more than an hour after the collision, they again told the couple that they would “send someone down.”
Youngsmith wasn’t convinced, so she had her mother come pick her and her increasingly restless children up. Fleming remained until around 7:20 p.m. — two hours after the collision — when he received a call telling him to visit Northern Station, less than a mile away, to provide a statement.
“Though I recognize that none of us were injured, and there wasn’t major property damage, it seemed relevant to the crime,” said Youngsmith, who is an attorney. “It seemed both relevant from a public safety perspective, and also just relevant to the underlying crime.”
California tracks vehicle pursuits and their outcomes closely. A 2023 report on police chases by the California Highway Patrol said that nearly 20 percent of reported police pursuits in the state resulted in a crash in 2022. San Francisco has reportedly seen an especially high crash rate from police chases — 41 percent in recent years. Meanwhile, less than half of police pursuits across the state, without air support like a drone, resulted in apprehension of the suspect.
Despite an eagerness among city leaders to loosen restrictions under Prop. E, which passed in March, police-chase rules actually haven’t changed yet; officers are still instructed to pursue vehicles “without unnecessarily endangering the public” when a suspect is suspected of a violent felony or poses a public-safety risk. Under Prop. E changes, expected to go into effect by October, police will also be explicitly permitted to chase in cases of a “violent misdemeanor.”
Fleming went to Northern Station and gave a statement, where he was assured by an apologetic officer that officers at the scene should have spoken to the family. The next day, after Youngsmith contacted police officials about the family’s experience, Tenderloin Station Captain Daniel Manning contacted sent her a written apology, calling the officers’ behavior “unacceptable,” and Assistant Chief David Lazar also followed up with an apology by phone, she said.
“I will address this with our officers,” wrote Manning in an email. “The officers should have assisted you and not let [sic] you and your children stranded.”
Though she appreciated the apologies after the fact, Youngsmith said she had a “lingering question” about police officers’ culture around car chases.
“If you have indifference to the impact of these pursuits, then you are not thinking critically about that impact when you’re making decisions about whether or not to pursue,” Youngsmith said. “And that is scary.”
When the issue was raised at the Police Commission meeting on Sept. 4, Police Chief Bill Scott said he also was sorry to hear about the Youngsmiths’ experience.
“No matter what the policy is, we have a responsibility to — by law and a sense of moral obligation — to assess the risk when we’re pursuing somebody,” Scott said. “And by law you have to have due regard for safety.”
Scott pointed to another chase this week of a reckless driver suspected of a stabbing. Officers called off the pursuit, he said, and later located the driver to make the arrest.
But that wasn’t the case for the Jeep chase that Youngsmith and her family were caught up in.
“We were lucky, but that’s just it; we were lucky,” Youngsmith said. “And next time, particularly when these broadened rules go into effect, someone else might not be so lucky.”
It must be so frustrating for them that they don’t get to blame Chesa Boudin for this kind of thing anymore.
I am certain the cops on the scene felt that the Youngsmiths should not have bothered them with minor car damage which is strictly between them and their insurance company – why would they be interested in recording a bit of collateral damage when they have not even dashed together a report on the car chase?
Thank you Mission Local and Eleni Balakrishnan for this thought provoking story. The incident perfectly illustrates the dangers of high speed car chases in a city as dense as San Francisco. In a time where political candidates are promoting law and order solutions for pretty much every challenge we face (homelessness, fentanyl crisis, bipping, skateboarding, jaywalking, burglaries, drug overdoses, auto theft, garage break ins etc.), the dangers of this kind of bludgeon logic are on full display here. Local and statewide data shows that over half of car chases end in collisions and are extremely dangerous and largely ineffective. Equally striking: the crystal clear need for oversight of SFPD and other city departments that are supposed to serve San Franciscans. Imagine if these events happened to you with your two children. This incident is deeply disturbing and should be a teaching moment.
On the flip-side, the danger of just letting criminals drive off, is then you get more and more local and even out of town criminals coming to San Francisco to commit crimes, because they know they can just drive away without being followed by SFPD. All this leads to more and more crime victims.
I’m really sorry that the family was left waiting so long. When you have kids under 7 years old, your options for getting around the city are super limited – I’m glad they had someone they could call for a pick up. It seems very short-sighted, wasteful, and.. what’s the word … feral, maybe? … for every officer to be involved in this one chase.
I was in the pedestrian crossing and backtracked super fast back to the sidewalk at Harrison x 9th Tuesday night when a red jeep blew through the red light. And then I was halfway through when a police car came up, but they stopped at the red light.
I was surprised at the time that the officers stopped at the light – I’d fully expected them to go through.
I’d also be very curious to learn more about the stolen jeep!
Anyone reading this can call the DPA to file a complaint about this. And everyone reading this should.
https://sfdpa.my.salesforce-sites.com/apex/VisualAntidote__HostedFastForm?h=Z0S4A
And when you do, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some names of supervisors involved in this (any sergeant or lieutenant on scene or monitoring radio back at the station) and name them too. Failure to supervise their officers. This doesn’t get called out nearly enough and without more accountability there, no reform will be as effective. This kind or accountability is practically non existent within the department.
I’m sure if she were a “longtime friend” of London “xi” Breed, she’d have gotten a bottle of wine, trip to China and a backstage pass to Toni Tony Tone.
It’s called “the Kiss Off.”
This incident illustrates perfectly why we need an Independent Police Commission comprised of San Franciscans to oversee the SFPD and its practices. Citizens demand transparency and accountability from our police officers. No police force can (or should) self police. Our national military does not have oversight of itself; in a democracy, transparency and accountability to other branches of government are required.
Hit & Run fender bender. No serious damage. Nobody was hurt. Offender is long gone. Police station is a few blocks away, where she could’ve easily filed a report and been on her way. So why are we here?
Come on, Mission Local. Do a little better reporting.
Who was in the car that hit these people’s car? Why were they fleeing police? Were they caught?
That’s such an important part of the story, but in your typical haste to criticize police while indulging criminals, you left it out. How hard would it be to include this information?
Hi there.
You seem to miss the part where the police said they could not comment on that matter. Regardless, that has little to do with the alleged comportment of the officers afterward, which resulted in apologies from both a station captain and an assistant chief.
JE