Perhaps you recall the case from 2011: following a Thanksgiving morning altercation, a man intentionally runs over a state firefighter at a San Francisco gas station, then flees. The victim was left with traumatic brain injuries, and after days of searching, the suspect was tracked down and arrested. This week, that driver was convicted of torture, mayhem, and assault with a deadly weapon with an enhancement for great bodily injury, four-plus years after the crime.

Former Marine, current Cal Fire firefighter, and father Albert Bartal, who was then aged 29, was at the Jack in the Box at 11th Avenue and Geary Boulevard at around 3:45 a.m. on Thanksgiving, 2011. While there, he got into an argument with Eduardo Chaparro-Esquivel of South San Francisco.

"Give me my food, I'm going to run him over," prosecutors said Chaparro-Esquivel announced from inside the Jack in the Box.

"I'm going to fuck him up," he reportedly added.

Less than two minutes later, witnesses saw Chaparro-Esquivel drive his SUV into Bartal as the victim walked through the lot of the gas station at the corner of Geary and 11th.

Chaparro-Esquivel "was going about 35 mph and hit the victim head on, causing him to be projected into the air and land head first on the curb," a San Francisco District Attorney's office spokesperson said this week. Bartal suffered a traumatic brain injury in the collision, and has been in a coma since that day, prosecutors say.
Chaparro-Esquivel fled the scene. Police released photos of his vehicle, and the below video taken at the Jack in the Box that night, in an effort to track him down.

Chaparro-Esquivel was arrested days later, but didn't face trial until this month. Wednesday, he was convicted of torture, mayhem, and assault with a deadly weapon with an enhancement for great bodily injury.

In a statement, District Attorney George Gascón said that "We're pleased that this violent man was held accountable," but noted that Bartal "and his family may never fully recover."

According to Gascón, the convicted man "may spend the rest of his life behind bars," as the maximum penalty for those charges could be life with the possibility of parole.

Chaparro-Esquivel is due to be sentenced at 9 a.m. on May 6th.