A 35-year-old man who allegedly hit an elderly pedestrian on the sidewalk near Union Square while fleeing police earlier this week is facing several charges, including assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Melthon Branch was first spotted by police about 8:30 p.m. Monday while he was riding the scooter on the north sidewalk of Ellis Street towards Jones Street. The officer recognized Branch and knew he had an outstanding warrant from the U.S. Marshals Service.<\/p>\n
When the officer tried to pull him over, however, Branch allegedly fled, riding his scooter on the sidewalk where pedestrians were walking and into busy traffic on the road, according to the district attorney.<\/p>\n
He allegedly drove the wrong way for several blocks, violating multiple traffic signals along the way. Pedestrians had to move to avoid being struck as he weaved in and out of the street and sidewalks, the district attorney said.<\/p>\n
The suspect was riding north on the west sidewalk of Powell approaching O’Farrell Street when he allegedly struck a 72-year-old woman, throwing her to the ground. The woman was hospitalized with a fractured elbow and a broken wrist that required surgery, according to the district attorney.<\/p>\n
After the collision, Branch allegedly ran towards the 200 block of O’Farrell Street and dove under a table where restaurant customers were eating.<\/p>\n
He was taken into custody there, and officers allegedly seized suspected methamphetamine, over $2,000 in cash, narcotics paraphernalia, a digital scale, unused packaging including Ziploc baggies, and three credit cards with other people’s names.<\/p>\n
Branch was charged with several crimes, including leaving the scene of an accident with an allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury on the victim, elder abuse with an allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury on the victim, and that he personally used a deadly weapon. He is also charged with assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, and possession for sale of methamphetamine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 35-year-old man who allegedly hit an elderly pedestrian on the sidewalk near Union Square while fleeing police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-402471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}