A Muni bus stop near the intersection of Ulloa Street and Lenox Way in San Francisco that was the scene of a deadly crash on March 16, 2024, appears in an undated Google Street View image. Three people including a child died after a car plowed into the bus stop. The driver was arrested. (Google image)
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has announced felony vehicular manslaughter charges against a woman who is accused of fatally striking a family of four with her SUV in the city’s West Portal neighborhood in March.
Mary Fong Lau, 79, was arrested in connection with a crash at a bus stop at Ulloa Street and Lenox Way that killed a family of four just after noon on March 16.
The family — Diego Cardoso de Oliveira and Matilde Ramos Pinto, their 2-year-old son Joaquin and infant Caue Ramos Pinto de Oliveira — all died as a result of the collision.
Matilde Ramos Pinto and Diego Cardoso de Oliveira appear in a screenshot of a 2021 post on Pinto’s Instagram account. The couple and their two young boys all died after they were struck by an SUV while waiting at a San Francisco bus stop on March 16, 2024. (itsmatilde/Instagram)
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott and Jenkins spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon to announce four felony counts of vehicular manslaughter, noting that the charges were based on alleged “gross negligence” by Lau.
Scott said that driver impairment or mechanical failure of the vehicle were not factors in the collision, though Jenkins said that Lau was allegedly speeding.
At the time of the press conference, Lau had not yet been taken into custody, but was working with her lawyer to do so, Scott said.
Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.
