BREAKING:#SF cable car operator injured in June crash dieshttps://t.co/rcBvLqGT7k#Muni #Transit pic.twitter.com/iuwbRSHIEV
— SF Examiner (@sfexaminer) January 12, 2016
A motorcyclist who was arrested after he allegedly struck and killed a cable car operator while driving under the influence took a plea bargain Monday that the dead man's family characterizes as "a slap in the face."
As previously reported, it was around 10:30 p.m. on June 11, 2015 when then-22-year-old William Kanta Makepeace allegedly broke traffic laws by illegally passing a cable car stopped at Taylor and Francisco streets, then slammed his motorcycle into the cable car's operator as he stepped from the vehicle.
The cable car operator, then-50-year-old Reynaldo Abraham “Avy” Morante, suffered a fractured skull and a traumatic brain injury as a result of the collision and was in a coma and on life support until his death on January 12 of this year.
Makepeace, who remained at the scene of the crash, was arrested on the spot. According to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, Makepeace’s blood alcohol level was .12 percent at the time of the collision. Any reading over .08 is considered over the legal limit in California.
Bay City News reports that Makepeace is "a lifelong San Francisco resident, attended Skidmore College in Albany, New York, where he studied anthropology and business. After his graduation in 2014, he was employed by Bloomberg LP in San Francisco in financial sales and analytics." In court Monday, he pled guilty to charges of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter and misdemeanor driving under the influence, and will concurrently serve one year of home detention and five years’ probation.
During his probation, the Chron notes, Makepeace will still be allowed to drive on San Francisco's streets, albeit in a limited fashion. Instead, he can "only operate a vehicle going to and from work," District Attorney's Department spokesperson Max Szabo says.
Reading a statement from Josephine Morante, one of the two children Reynaldo Morante left behind, Prosecutor Lailah Morris said that "the family objected to the plea agreement allowing Makepeace to plead to misdemeanors rather than felonies."
“It’s honestly a slap in the face that our father is dead and you are walking away with two misdemeanors,” Josephine Morante wrote to Makepeace, who "listened silently to the statement with a serious expression but did not make a statement of his own," BCN reports.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Edward Torpoco seemed equally uncomfortable with the sentence, saying “Mr. Makepeace, I think you are getting away extremely leniently in this case."
"If it were up to me, this case would be proceeding on a felony basis and you’d be looking at significant county jail or state prison time. But I’m not the prosecutor, I’m the judge."
Previously: SF Cable Car Operator Struck By Allegedly Drunk Motorcyclist Has Died