Two years ago, a 55-year-old homeless man named Elvis Presley was sleeping in a SoMa driveway when a driver who was pulling out of her garage ran over and killed him. In a chilling echo of that collision, last Friday, another sleeping homeless man was killed in that same driveway, in almost exactly the same circumstances.
At 7 a.m. on October 23, 2012, Presley, a well-known South Park area fixture, was sleeping in a driveway in the 500 block of Third Street, which is between Bryant and Brannan. A 28-year-old woman who was pulling out of the garage ran over him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The collision was ruled an accident, as the driver told police that she did not see Presley asleep on the sidewalk.
And a little more than two years later, the same thing has happened, in, Streetsblog reports, exactly the same driveway.
It was 6:40 p.m. on Friday when a 55-year-old male driver was pulling out of that same South Park area garage. As the driver piloted his SUV down the driveway, he ran over a man identified by the San Francisco medical examiner as 53-year-old Randy Jacobs.
Like Presley, Jacobs was pronounced dead at the scene. And, as in Presley's case, the driver will not be charged: speaking with the Chron, San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Officer Grace Gatpandan said "the car was exiting and just ran over the victim.”
“When the vehicle was exiting the garage, he was unable to see the guy sleeping there."