{"id":10915,"date":"2019-01-25T11:27:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T19:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=10915"},"modified":"2019-01-25T11:27:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T19:27:56","slug":"police-driver-runs-over-bicycle-homeless-man-during-telegraph-avenue-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/25\/police-driver-runs-over-bicycle-homeless-man-during-telegraph-avenue-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Police: Driver runs over bicycle, homeless man during Telegraph Avenue march"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Emilie Raguso<\/a> Jan. 24, 2019, 4:58 p.m.<\/a> (Berkeleyside.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A march to save People\u2019s Park turned violent Tuesday when a driver ran over a bicycle and a homeless man. Photo: James Cartmill<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A march by activists in Berkeley who hope to stop development at People\u2019s Park<\/a> turned violent Tuesday when a driver ran over a bicycle and a homeless man, according to police and community reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activists who were part of the march told Berkeleyside a group of perhaps 15-30 people was walking on Telegraph Avenue at Durant Avenue when a driver trying to force his way through the crowd ran over a bicycle \u2014 its rider jumped off \u2014 then turned the wrong way onto a one-way street and ran over a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, breaking his leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe went to drive through the protest, pushing his way through and being very aggressive with his driving,\u201d said James Cartmill, who was part of the march. (Cartmill\u2019s video of the incident<\/a>, which contains explicit language, is posted on Facebook.) \u201cIt\u2019s discouraging that people don\u2019t understand that our First Amendment right trumps their traveling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some who heard about the incident said it reminded them of the demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a driver killed Heather Heyer<\/a> as she protested a \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally of white nationalist and right-wing groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkeley Police spokesman Officer Byron White said the driver had been determined to be at fault for the collisions, but that there was \u201cno evidence to suggest that the driver was aware of the collision with the bicycle or the pedestrian at the time of the incident.\u201d Police continue to investigate, said White, who said he had not seen footage of the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cartmill\u2019s video captures much of the fracas, though not the driver\u2019s approach in relation to the march on Telegraph. In the footage, there\u2019s the sound of a thump, then someone yells, \u201cStop, you\u2019re running over a bike,\u201d as Cartmill pans left to the vehicle. Members of the crowd begin to strike the vehicle, as others shout at the driver: \u201cWhat \u2026 is your problem?\u201d and \u201cThe hell you doing, man?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The driver then abruptly turns left and heads west along the northern sidewalk of Durant as people chase and hit his vehicle, according to the footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe just ran over that guy,\u201d one person then shouts, according to the footage. Community members later identified the injured man as \u201cBlind Tony,\u201d a fixture on the corner who was sitting in his usual spot when he was hit. Cartmill said, as of Thursday, Tony had been released from the hospital with a fracture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tony on the sidewalk after he was hit. Photo: Sarah Menefee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to police, officers responded to Telegraph and Durant just before 12:10 p.m. Tuesday \u201cfor a collision involving a vehicle and a pedestrian that was related to a march on Telegraph Avenue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police said in a prepared statement that they talked with witnesses and \u201clearned that a vehicle travelling northbound on Telegraph Avenue was stopped or impeded by the persons in the roadway for the march. While stopped, a crowd formed around the vehicle and reportedly began pushing\/banging on the vehicle. The vehicle then drove west on northern sidewalk of Durant Avenue away from the crowd. At some point while driving away, the vehicle struck a bicycle in the road as well as a person who was lying on the sidewalk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BPD identified the driver as a 21-year-old Berkeley man and the person on the sidewalk as a 55-year-old homeless man. The man was taken to the hospital for cuts and bruising to the leg, said BPD, which could not confirm as of publication time whether the man\u2019s leg was broken in the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White said police found the driver, who is cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis Cuneo, a longtime Telegraph Avenue vendor-photographer, and founder of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, said he was near Yogurt Park, on Durant Avenue, when he \u201cheard a lot of noise\u201d and saw a car driving on the sidewalk being chased by people \u201ccalling him [the driver] rotten names.\u201d Cuneo said he was taken aback by the sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said, \u2018What? I never have seen this,’\u201d he thought to himself. \u201cI\u2019ve seen snow here. I\u2019ve seen riots here. But not this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkeley resident Moni Law wrote to city officials Thursday to implore them to take the matter seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre the police gathering security camera footage from the nearby bank and other businesses on Telegraph?\u201d she wrote. \u201cThis is very troubling and the offender cannot be left to think it\u2019s ok to mow down people with their car.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emilie Raguso Jan. 24, 2019, 4:58 p.m. (Berkeleyside.com) A march by activists in Berkeley who hope to stop development at People\u2019s Park turned violent Tuesday when a driver ran over a bicycle and a homeless man, according to police and community reports. Activists who were part of the march told Berkeleyside a… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10917,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915\/revisions\/10917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}