A man who's been charged with multiple crimes in connection with an eight-car crash Thursday morning near Lake Merced in San Francisco was on probation for grand theft, recently arrested for DUI, and was allegedly driving a car that was reported stolen out of San Jose.
31-year-old Jerry Lyons of San Francisco was briefly taken to the hospital and then remanded to police custody Thursday following the crash, which occurred just before 8 a.m. on Lake Merced Boulevard. One pedestrian, a 26-year-old man, was killed and four others in vehicles were also taken to hospitals for injuries.
As ABC 7 reports via the SFPD, Lyons was on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) after a grand theft conviction, and the vehicle he was driving at the time of the crash was a 2003 Ford Explorer that had been reported stolen. In addition to speeding and running a red light, Lyons has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence causing injury to another, and felony hit-and-run, among other charges.
He was scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. on Friday.
Lyons was just arrested by CHP officers in San Francisco in December, as KRON4 reports, for driving a stolen car, being unlicensed, and driving under the influence. It appears that Lyons had been released on his own recognizance and still had not been re-arrested following the results of a blood-toxicology test from the December incident.
This is the second instance of a pedestrian death in San Francisco involving a felon in a stolen car, following the New Year's Eve crash that killed two women in SoMa — and for which District Attorney Chesa Boudin has caught heat over the fact that the suspect had been freed from jail despite multiple arrests and parole violations. The suspect in that case, 45-year-old Troy Ramon McAlister, was also charged with DUI.
Boudin issued a statement following Lyons's arrest, saying, "Our hearts go out to the family of the victim, who tragically lost his life today. We have not received the case from police yet and cannot confirm details of the incident. We can only imagine the devastation for the victim's family, and promise to dedicate whatever resources are necessary to this case. We cannot bring closure but we will pursue justice. Police arrested Mr. Lyons last December for driving under the influence and driving a stolen car. He was sentenced to a 60-day jail term for violating his supervised release, and, as is common practice, our office requested blood toxicology results so that we could bring the DUI case. As soon as we received the blood results, on Jan. 22, we began working with CHP to pursue a DUI charge and awaited his arrest, which had not yet occurred as of this morning."
The victim in the crash has been identified by friends and family as 26-year-old African immigrant Sheria Musyoka, who was a married father to a three-year-old son, and who had recently graduated in the top three percent of his class at Dartmouth College and earned his green card.
His wife issued a statement to ABC 7 saying, "Sheria was the most authentic person, unashamed of being himself at all times. One second he would be a total goofball and another he would be philosophical. He was empathetic and compassionate. He had a lot of plans for life and he wanted to do really big things. He worked harder for those things than anyone else I've ever known, overcoming obstacles that most people don't have to face. He loved his son more than anyone else and couldn't wait to teach him to speak Swahili and to play soccer, his favorite sport. He didn't deserve to die, especially like that."
Previously: Eight-Car Crash Near Lake Merced Leaves One Dead, Five Injured
Photo via Citizen