Weekly-perusing Appeal reader Chad emailed us after reading this SF Weekly article that suggests that Mayoral hopeful Bevan Dufty’s recent criticisms of Muni safety issues might not be borne out by the facts, citing Muni’s overall decline in accidents and favorbaly comparing Muni’s record to those in other cities.
Our reader notes that in this September 22nd story, reporter Erin Sherbert says “last week, a man was killed by a light-rail vehicle at Church and 22nd Street.” Chad then asks the Appeal “Did you guys miss this? They decided that a train hit that guy. Where’s your followup?”
ZING! OK, true, we weren’t emailing MTA spokesperson Judson True every day for updates on the September 10 incident in which a man was found dead near the J tracks at Church and 22nd.
The last we had heard, the Examiner had corrected a story which had originally said the man was struck by Muni. The MTA had said that video of the incident shows the man, identified as William Nelson, got off the S-Castro “through the rear doors at a designated stop along the Muni right-of-way just before the intersection of Church and 22nd streets. The man walks approximately 20-30 feet alongside the LRV in the same direction (south). The LRV begins to move and while the man is walking he appears to fall and is no longer visible in the video.”
Stung by the implication from our reader that we fell down on the job (Not that it’s untrue! We fall down all the time! (Hmm, probably bad choice of words given what we’re talking about.) But we also work hard to fix stuff, fast, so here you go), I shot an email off to MTA spokesperson Judson True. Has it been determined that a Muni vehicle was the cause behind the man’s death on Sept 10? I asked. He responded “I haven’t provided (or received) any info” on the incident. following up with another note saying “I checked and no new info yet.”
In the Weekly piece, Sherbert says that “Muni officials say the…incident is still under investigation,” which is a smart equivocation given how sort of weird and iffy the entire situation seems to be — but the fact remains that, at least as of this writing, neither the MTA nor the SFPD still have said that a Muni vehicle hit Nelson before his death.*
Of course, it’s completely possible that Sherbert knows something we don’t (an email sent via SF Weekly’s weird email form thing did not receive a response), so, dear reader, we can’t answer your question with total certainty. But given the facts I have at my disposal, Chad, nope, “they” didn’t decide a train hit “that guy” — at least, not yet.
*And, sure, that an article about how Muni’s safety record gets a bum rap might be assigning a bum rap of its own is kind of funny, but that’s not the point of this piece — we’re just here to respond to Chad (if that’s your REAL NAME just kidding thanks for reading!)
