Sideshows blamed in deadly crash
S.F. streets where man died are not safe, nearby residents say
Karen Dominique sat on a bench at an Oakland dog park waiting for her younger brother.
She had just spoken with him on the phone. Lee Andrew Dominique Jr. planned to meet her after leaving a dog park across the bay, in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, with Tigger, his 5yearold shorthair Chihuahua mix.
An hour passed, then two. Karen Dominique waited a little longer, and then she got a call. Her 50yearold brother had been killed in a car crash.
“It’s devastating,” said Dominique. “We were like peanut butter and jelly. He’s my best friend.”
The collision happened around 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Hunters Point Boulevard and Evans Avenue in the Bayview. Residents say the neighborhood streets are made dangerous by frequent sideshows, speeding cars and intersections with low visibility. It was a tragedy waiting to happen.
“Everybody could see that one day someone was going to get hurt,” said Sean Karlin, 52, who lives on Innes Avenue about a halfmile from the collision site. “This just seems like it was a long time coming.”
People had gathered to enjoy the warm October afternoon down by the waterfront, Karlin said. Just like most weekends, they drank beer and ate barbecue from a the street vendor who regularly sets up shop.
Karlin, meanwhile, was at home when he heard a noise so loud he ran outside to his balcony. He saw a black sedan flipped upsidedown. Fire trucks and ambulances arrived one after another.
Police released few details. A Corvette driven by a 25yearold man struck Dominique’s sedan headon, causing it to roll over, officials said. Emergency responders had to use hydraulic rescue tools to pry the sedan open, fire officials said.
The Corvette driver sustained lifethreatening injuries, and a teenage passenger was moderately injured, police said. Police did not say which car the
passenger was riding in. Both remained in the hospital as of Monday afternoon.
But those who were there paint a clearer picture. Neighbors told Karlin that a yellow Corvette had been doing a sideshow — spinning doughnuts on the wide road — for the crowd hanging out in the area.
Karen Dominique said she also heard from someone who witnessed the incident that her brother’s car was struck by a speeding yellow Corvette. People often drive recklessly in the neighborhood and there are no speed bumps, she said.
San Francisco police spokesman Officer Robert Rueca said he did not know how fast either car was going, whether the Corvette was part of a sideshow or if it was being recklessly driven before the collision. Speed is almost always a factor in a rollover crash, he said. Police are still investigating and have not yet determined if an arrest will be made.
Rueca said the area is not unique in the number of reported sideshows, and the intersection where the collision occurred is not more dangerous than others.
“That happens really all over the city,” he said. Not all residents agree. Karlin said he and neighbors have contacted police and the district supervisor, Shamann Walton, who was unavailable for comment Tuesday, to complain about the cars he sees racing down his street and around the dangerous curves. Officials have been reluctant to act, he said.
“It’s just systemic what’s going on at that corner,” Karlin said. “We’re not looking to bust people, we’re just looking to find solutions that will calm that curb.”
Lee Dominique, who formerly lived in a home a mile away from the crash, was there on Sunday to walk his dog and visit old friends. The father of two adult children used to work in landscaping, his stepmother Naomi Sanders said.
He was fascinated by old cars, Sanders said. He owned a 1967 Buick Skylark and a Mustang convertible, his sister said, and took his sibling to car shows on the weekends.
“Everyone loved him,” Karen Dominique said. “He always liked to joke and make you smile.”
Sanders said she had a good relationship with her stepson. He visited her even after his father died, and was always a reliable person to call when something around the house broke.
“I’m just going to miss him,” Sanders said.
On Tuesday, Karen Dominique went to San Francisco Animal Care and Control to pick up Tigger, who survived the crash.
She cradled the tiny animal in her arms and walked out the door, wiping away tears.