Henry K. Lee and John King
The San Francisco Chronicle
A car carrying four suspects in a Berkeley homicide slammed into a vehicle in North Oakland while fleeing from police Saturday evening, killing two people - one a motorist, the other a pedestrian - in a horrific chain-reaction crash, police said.
The crash happened at 6:41 p.m. at the corner of Aileen Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland, six minutes after police received reports of a shooting in West Berkeley that left a young man dead, authorities said.
The suspects crashed their Cadillac into a Mazda at the busy intersection, killing a motorist. That car then spun into the path of a pedestrian - killing that person - before coming to rest against a building, said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.
“It was quite a mangled scene,” Kusmiss said.
The names of the victims in the shooting and the crash weren’t immediately released.
Two suspects were arrested in the Cadillac after the collision, and the Berkeley police SWAT team, K-9 units and the Oakland police helicopter were searching late Saturday night for the two others who ran from the vehicle.
The crash victims’ deaths are the latest involving Bay Area motorists and pedestrians who have been killed as a result of suspects on the run.
A 34-year-old Oakland woman who didn’t want her name used said she was walking her two dogs when she heard sirens and saw a car being chased by police east on Aileen. The car then barreled into a sedan heading north on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
“That car just goes flying,” she said. “Everything is spinning and smashing into the building. The two of them got out of the car and ran. They hopped into a backyard.”
Moments before the crash, she said, she had seen a man crossing the street. She said she didn’t know if he had been hit.
She said she had mixed feelings about what she had witnessed.
“I don’t know why these guys were running from them, why they just didn’t stop and why this had to end in some horrible tragedy,” she said, adding, “I feel that the police were completely doing their job, but it’s a residential area. People were out walking on the street.”
The series of events began at 6:35 p.m. when Berkeley police received reports of a shooting near the corner of 10th and Allston streets in West Berkeley, Kusmiss said. A young man was found dead at the scene from numerous gunshot wounds, police said.
Police saw four men fleeing in a tan Cadillac and began chasing it through West and South Berkeley before it crashed.
The crash happened outside the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, the biomedical research arm of Children’s Hospital Oakland, which is located several blocks away.
Martin Luther King Jr. Way is a busy thoroughfare marked by numerous “senior crossing” signs, warning motorists to slow down because of the number of elderly residents who live at the nearby Sojourner Truth Manor retirement home.
The crash was a grim reminder of the dangers posed by police pursuits.
In the Bay Area, innocent motorists have been killed in recent years in Berkeley, Concord, El Sobrante, Hayward, Oakland, Pinole and San Francisco.
Police in many cities are authorized to continue a chase if the person being pursued is suspected of a violent crime, such as a homicide. Some police agencies abort pursuits if the dangers involved outweigh the benefits of arresting the suspects, especially those wanted for relatively minor infractions such as speeding.
In general, a police officer is allowed to pursue suspects into a neighboring city as long as a supervising officer approves it, police say, and it’s customary for dispatchers to notify their counterparts when pursuits cross city lines.
Copyright 2009 San Francisco Chronicle