Friends describe ax attack before deadly hit-and-run

A group of men who were run down last week in San Francisco by an angry, axwielding van driver — leaving one dead and four injured — had just wrapped up a fishing trip to the bay shore when they were attacked, authorities and friends of the victims said Monday.

The defendant, 33-year-old Mark Anthony Dennis, was arrested shortly after the chaotic episode last Wednesday in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood and charged with murder, four counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault with a deadly weapon. A motive in the attack remains unclear.

Wearing his jail clothing, Dennis made an appearance Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, where he did not enter a plea and was ordered to

return Thursday.

Staring down Dennis from the court gallery were friends of Eliseo Lopez, 34, who died from his injuries in the alleged hitand-run. Marta Rebolledo and Valentin Benitez-Cruz held back tears during the brief hearing.

“My friend should have never died that way,” Benitez-Cruz said outside court. “I don’t understand what happened. This guy was crazy.”

He said he was with Lopez that day but was uninjured. The men, he said, had been fishing at Warm Water Cove to “eat from the sea” in observance of Lent and were walking away around 10:30 a.m. when Dennis engaged them and began calling them “Mexican names.”

Dennis had stopped his van in the intersection of 24th and Illinois streets, where he got out and confronted the group as they walked on the sidewalk, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Mahoney wrote in court papers, asking for the defendant to be held without bail.

After berating the men, Dennis grabbed a bottle and hurled it at them, then pulled out an ax and came at them, Mahoney said. Some of the victims took off their belts to defend themselves and wrestled the ax away before chasing Dennis back to his van, authorities said.

The pedestrians thought the altercation was over and strolled away, but Dennis did a three-point turn and plowed into the men from behind on the sidewalk, Mahoney said. Police reported arresting Dennis an hour later in another part of the city.

All five victims were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. Lopez, a laborer who had been given the day off to go fishing, died at the hospital.

“He was like more than family. He was a great man,” said Rebolledo, Lopez’s friend of 10 years and former roommate.

Another victim remains in critical condition, she said, while the others are in various states of recovery. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky