The accident that killed an entire family of four happened two years ago, but to the West Portal neighborhood where it occurred, the wound is still fresh. On Friday, the driver in that deadly crash, Mary Fong Lau, 80, was sentenced to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service. The judge in the case, Bruce Chan, also suspended Lau’s license for three years, and she will have to pay the victim’s family a sum that might be as high as $300,000 or as low as $67,000.
The day after the sentencing, photos of 3-month-old Cauê Ramos Pinto de Oliveira, his 1-year-old brother Joaquin, his father Diego, and mother Matilde hung in a memorial next to where they had been waiting for a bus to take them to the zoo when Lau’s Mercedes SUV plowed into them at 75 miles per hour.
As kids skipped and rode their scooters over the spot in the asphalt that still bears the scar of the accident, neighbors processed their feelings about the verdict and the tragedy that has changed the neighborhood.
Michael Baca, who was shopping at Bookshop West Portal on Saturday with his two-year-old daughter and his elderly chihuahua mix, was holding back tears as he thought back to the day of the accident — his daughter’s birthday.
“I’m shocked at the sentence. How? How could this be it? A whole family wiped from the earth and she gets, what, probation?” asked Baca, who heard the sirens that day.
As his daughter looked for picture books, Baca remembered the night of the accident when his coworker, who had lived next to the victims, texted him in anguish to say, “I guess they are not coming back. The lights never turned on.”
A memorial photo of Diego Cardoso de Oliveira and Matilde Moncado Ramos Pinto hangs at the site of the crash. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard
For Baca, and for so many in the neighborhood, it’s all so close to home. “It could have been us,” he said. “He was a creative director at Apple. His wife was a media producer. I’m a creative directive. My wife is a media producer. Our kids are the same age basically. I have to walk past that spot every day.”
Jamie Wong, who lives in Miraloma Park with her 2- and 6-year-old sons, felt the same way. “We could’ve been the ones waiting there to go to the zoo,” she told The Standard Saturday. She couldn’t say what sentence Lau should have gotten, but felt she “she got off way too easy.”
But then again, she wondered, “How do you get justice for a family that lost everything?”
Even without intimate knowledge of the justice system, locals debated the specifics of the punishment and trial. They were also confused about how it all happened. If Lau’s car wasn’t having mechanical issues, and if she wasn’t on drugs or carrying a mental illness, asked a 40-year-old mother of two who spoke under the condition of anonymity, how did she come to reach 70 miles per hour between stop signs just hundreds of feet apart?
“Why’d you run over those people?” she wondered, still suspicious of Lau’s intent. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”
To many in the neighborhood, the sentence feels like a miscarriage of justice, but many also question whether justice was really possible in this case.
“It’s so awful what happened, but is the right thing to do to put an 80-year-old woman in prison?” wondered a woman named Laurence, who has lived in West Portal for 32 years and walks past the accident site every day. “There was no intent. This was a pure tragedy on every side.”
Alice, 80, stood Saturday afternoon waiting for a bus across the street from where the family died. The word that popped into her mind when she heard the sentence was “rotten.” “It’s totally wrong. And they didn’t even take away her license permanently. I’m 80 and I gave up driving four years ago,” she said, remembering that the transition to public transit was hard from where she has lived in Parkmerced for 46 years, but it was the right decision. She is appalled that the judge left open the possibility that Lau could drive again.
The fact that Lau could get her license back in a few years is a fact most West Portal regulars find shocking. “I don’t think sending an 80-year-old woman to jail would have been fair, “ said Audrey, who lives in nearby Miraloma and was eating lunch on Saturday around the corner from the accident site. “But she should never drive again.”
Audrey had a husband with dementia who was forced to stop driving and she understands how hard that can be, but she wished this situation would open up a conversation about age and safe driving. “If this was a functioning society, we’d be having conversations about how and when to know if it’s time to stop driving,” she said.
“Don’t give her a driver’s license, for god’s sake,” said Christina Visus, 66, a retired Spanish interpreter in the SF court system, who lives in the Sunset. “Get that woman off the roads. Don’t let her get behind that wheel.”
“At least she should have lost her license,” said Issa, the proprietor of the West Portal Daily bodega, who declined to give his last name.
Issa remembers being across the street at Unwine’d when the accident happened. “I saw the dad flying. He was lost on the spot,” she said. “But you know what was scarier than the accident itself? When the priest showed up. It was like in the movies. He began praying over the body. Then it felt real.”
After the accident, the city made changes to the intersection where it occurred, including making Lenox Street one way, and adding in street barriers and colorful pedestrian-friendly markers. To Shelby Ash, who has owned The Music Store on West Portal Avenue for 27 years, these changes have only made the intersection more confusing for people to navigate. He questions the city’s redesign, and Lau’s sentence.
“It’s kind of bullshit. You killed four people and you get a slap on the wrist?” he said Saturday as teenagers browsed the CD aisles in his shop. “I know she is old, but she should at least lose her license and have to pay millions for what she did.”
Susan Lakatos, a 73-year-old retiree who lives in the Lakeshore neighborhood, tried to hold space for both sides.
“For the family, that’s not really a punishment,” she said. “On the other hand, accidents happen — but this was a very bad one.”
“Unfortunately,” she added, “nothing will bring them back, whether or not she’s punished.”
Neighbors, family, and friends mourned at the memorial site on Thursday. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard