The man killed Tuesday afternoon in a collision at Seventh and Mission streets has been identified as 26-year-old Pablo Ramirez, a professional skateboarder with a local crew called GX-1000 who were profiled by GQ last year.
Ramirez was apparently just leaving the county courthouse at 7th and Bryant Tuesday where he and friends were attending the hearing of a skateboarding friend accused in a November assault on a security guard in downtown SF. As the Chronicle reports, according to witnesses, Ramirez was towing behind a vehicle on his board headed up Seventh when he was fatally hit by a dump truck. (Earlier reports suggested that he had been towing behind the dump truck, and CBS SF reports via the SFPD that Ramirez was not holding onto the truck.)
Well known throughout the local skating community, Ramirez moved to San Francisco several years ago from New York in order to skate, according to Thrasher Magazine owner Tony Vitello. Vitello tells the Chronicle, "He was one of the happiest, most positive people I have ever met... He would just be so pumped up to see you. He was just that stoked all the time."
Vitello further says Ramirez wrote one of the most poignant and moving tributes in the wake of the March death of Thrasher editor-in-chief Jake Phelps.
Ramirez was a member of a hill-bombing crew called GX-1000, and he went by the nickname "P-Spliff" — which is also the handle on his skate-video-filled Instagram account, where friends have been writing tributes in comments on the last video he posted four days ago. "Ride on brother," writes Miguel Mobbin. "You will always be one of the fastest to ever do it."
The GQ piece from April 2018 describes GX-1000 as the "most fearless crew in skateboarding."
The court case that Ramirez and friends had gathered at 850 Bryant for involves fellow skater Jesse Vieira, 24. Vieira is accused in the November assault on 57-year-old security guard Dan Jansen. Vieira and friends were apparently skating around 555 California on November 25 when they encountered Jansen, who was left with a traumatic brain injury and a huge "crater" in his skull, as the Chronicle reports. Vieira's attorney is arguing that Vieira acted in self-defense.
