Thread: Up to 14 hurt in SF hit-and-run spree

It appears this guy immigrated from Afghanistan. Wonder if this was a terrorist attack?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... KRCO55.DTL

Up to 14 hurt in SF hit-and-run spree
7 critical; driver believed to have struck, killed a man in Fremont earlier
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Steve Rubenstein and Susan Sward, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 29, 2006


Updated 6:13 p.m. -- As many as 14 people were injured this afternoon by a motorist who drove around San Francisco deliberately running them down before being arrested by police, who believe the same driver struck and killed a man earlier today in Fremont.

At least one hit-and-run victim remained in critical condition this evening.

Reports of the incidents began pouring in at 12:47 p.m., police said.

Within a half-hour, San Francisco police had cornered and arrested 29-year-old Omeed Aziz Popal, who has addresses in Ceres (Stanislaus County) and Fremont.

Authorities suspect Popal was the same driver who ran over and killed a 54-year-old man in Fremont around noon.

That man, whose name was not immediately released, had been walking in a bicycle lane at Fremont Boulevard near Ferry Lane when he was struck and thrown into a field, where, as of 5:30 p.m., his body remained covered with a tarp.

That crash scene is just blocks from Popal's Fremont address, where he had most recently been living.

San Francisco police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens said the attacks in the city occurred at 12 locations over a 20-minute period.

"The hits were intentional,'' he said, noting that police are treating them as assaults.

Gittens had no information about a possible motive.

Popal was arrested after patrol cars boxed in his black Honda SUV, its windshield and right front headlight smashed, outside a Walgreens store on Spruce Street between California and Mayfair in the Laurel Heights area.

A dental office manager, who identified herself only as Kira, watched from a second-floor window as police dragged the driver out of his vehicle.

"He was absolutely indifferent, no fear, no expression,'' she said. "He was like a zombie.''

Architect Jeremy Warms also saw police pull Popal out of the SUV and sit him down on the curb.

"He looked calm and pretty clean-cut, like a normal guy,'' Warms said. "He sat on the pavement for a good 25 minutes. I don't think anyone said anything to him. They put him in a police car and took him away.''

This evening, it was unclear exactly how many people had been injured, and in what order the incidents occurred. The police reported the following injuries:

-- Two people, one of them a child, were seriously injured on the 3500 block of California Street in Laurel Heights.

-- Three people were hit at California and Fillmore streets. Witnesses said they included a man with a broken hip and a woman with a gashed head.

-- Two people were seriously hurt at Bush and Pierce streets.

-- One person was seriously injured at Bush and Buchanan streets.

-- One person suffered minor injuries in an incident at 1850 Fillmore St.

-- Two other people suffered minor injuries when they were hit at Pine at Divisadero streets.

-- Two people were hit and suffered minor injuries at Divisadero and Bush streets.

"It was like 'Death Race 2000,' " firefighter Danny Bright said at California and Fillmore streets as an ambulance stood nearby. "Guys were walking down the sidewalk, and the guy just came up and ran them over. The guy went crazy."

Mayor Gavin Newsom visited five of the victims at San Francisco General Hospital.

"This was so senseless and inexplicable,'' the mayor said afterward.

One man he visited, who identified himself as Jesse, said as he was walking out of the hospital, "The car came after me. I'm lucky to be alive. Life is good.''

Of the other six victims taken to S.F. General, who ranged in age from 18 to 84, four were scheduled to be discharged later in the day, and one was in critical condition in the intensive care unit, said Eileen Shields, spokeswoman for the city Public Health Department.

Three other victims were taken to St. Francis Hospital, one to Kaiser and two to California Pacific Medical Center, authorities said.

Emanule Gowan, 50, said he had been standing on his Steiner Street doorstep around 1 p.m. when an SUV roared by, driving the wrong way down Bush Street, and hit an elderly man in the crosswalk.

"The man must have gone up in the air about 8 feet and landed on the SUV's windshield,'' Gowan said. "He slid off the windshield, and the SUV rolled right over him and took off, leaving the man hollering on the ground.''

After running a stop sign and hitting another pedestrian in a crosswalk on Sutter Street, the driver headed off down Steiner, Gowan said.

"I looked right at him, and he looked at me as he busted down the street," Gowan said. "He was very calm.''

Other witnesses described the SUV as jumping the sidewalk in apparent pursuit of pedestrians.

Jackie Le, owner of J.T. Nails on Fillmore Street, said she was filing a customer's nails around 12:50 p.m. when the woman started screaming, "Oh my God, an SUV on the sidewalk -- it hit a woman on the sidewalk.''

Linda Tuttle, a stylist at a beauty salon on Fillmore between Bush and Sutter, said she saw the driver heading down the sidewalk, sitting close to the steering wheel, an angry look on his face.

Larry Jackson saw the vehicle driving the right direction on Bush Street, slowing at the intersection of Pierce Street as a woman walked in the crosswalk.

"He let her walk by till she got in front of him, and he just punched it," Jackson said. He attended to the woman and, a short time later, the driver roared down Bush in the wrong direction.

The SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the rampage ended.

Blood covered the sidewalk in front of the center's gift store entrance, and 50 feet farther down the sidewalk lay a mangled bicycle.

Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m., according to Aaron Rosenthal, spokesman for the community center.

One victim, Pedro Aglugov, 70, was sitting at a table at a sidewalk cafe at California and Fillmore with his head bandaged with gauze, holding an ice pack to one elbow.

"He was going real fast," Aglugov said of the driver. "I was lucky I wasn't hurt more.''

Eliseo Billones Jr., 24, a canvasser for Greenpeace, had been standing on the corner when Aglugov was hit.

"He was going berserk," Billones said of the driver. "It was a red light, and he just ran the red light. I saw him (Aglugov) hit the corner of the bumper and tumble.''

Barclay Lynn, 39, of San Francisco, said she and a friend had been traveling east on Bush when they noticed a black SUV driving away and saw that a motorcyclist had been hit.

"The motorcyclist stood in the intersection trying to signal the driver to stop,'' Lynn said. The SUV then "went speeding in reverse on Bush heading west, weaving in and out of traffic. The whole right side of his SUV was smashed in.''

At Frankie's Bohemian Cafe at Divisadero and Pine, a man named William, who asked that his last name not be used, said he had been walking south on Divisadero when "we heard the thump, turned around, saw bodies flying.''

The driver went down Pine and Bush, "stood on the gas," then a couple of minutes later "came flying up through the bus lane" headed north on Divisadero.

Another man at the cafe, Max Bran, said, "We thought he was going to stop and give up, but instead he just stepped on the gas. It didn't matter, regardless of the lights.''

Bran said he saw a woman knocked down. "She was just crossing the street, just crossing the street," he said. "In fact, I had just crossed the street.''

Authorities suspect that the SUV is the same one that struck and killed a pedestrian in Fremont earlier today.

That victim had been walking north on Fremont Boulevard in the bicycle lane when he was struck from behind and knocked several feet into a field, Fremont Officer Alan Zambonin said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. The black SUV, a Honda described as a Pilot or a CRV, made no attempt to stop or help the victim, police said.

Zambonin estimated the SUV had been traveling as fast as 50 mph and sped away with a shattered windshield and damage to the right front side.

"It's a good possibility (the incidents) are all connected,'' Zambonin said.

Chronicle staff writers Vanessa Hua, Matt Stannard, Wyatt Buchanan, Jill Tucker, Nanette Asimov, Cecilia Vega and Susan Sward contributed to this report.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... REMONT.TMP

THE SUSPECT: Recently began arranged marriage
- Jaxon Van Derbeken and Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 30, 2006


Omeed Aziz Popal, now in custody for a fatal hit and run rampage that apparently began in Fremont and ended in San Francisco, has a history of mental problems and lives in fear of the devil, some family members say. Other family members say he may have been anxious because of his recent marriage arranged by his family.

But those involved in the investigation -- speaking on condition of anonymity -- discount any mental illness, saying Popal seemed coherent, unrepentant and claimed that he repeatedly drove at pedestrians because he "just wanted to.''

A month ago, the 29-year-old Fremont resident and one-time auto worker returned home after getting married in his native Afghanistan, his family said. There was a wedding celebration two weeks ago, and Popal seemed to have everything to live for, some family members said. The family said Popal's father had arranged the marriage.

"He was so happy and excited about being married -- I can't believe this happened today,'' said Homa Aziz, a cousin who lives in Hayward. "Omeed is not that kind of boy. I don't know what is wrong with him. He is the nicest boy.''

She said that Popal, who was studying auto mechanics at WyoTech, formerly known as the Sequoia Institute, intended to bring his wife from Afghanistan to settle in the area. "He just talked about his wife.''

Hamid Nekrawesh, another cousin, said Popal's arranged marriage could have been stressful.

"Arranged marriage is a very common practice -- people don't kill people over that,'' Nekrawesh said. "But that was the only thing new in his life.''

Popal was "a very loving, caring person,'' he said. "I can never see him doing such an act.''

He said that he joked with Popal before he went to Kabul about him becoming a man. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary,'' Nekrawesh said. "After he came back, he went to the celebration gathering at his house -- he was happy.''

But another cousin, Zarghona Ramish, said Popal was having mental problems. Popal "thought the devil was coming to get him" and dreamed about bad things, Ramish said.

Neighbors in Fremont recalled that Popal also had worked for New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. auto plant in Fremont, which manufactures Toyotas and Pontiacs. They said he lived there with his parents, two sisters and brother in a middle-class neighborhood on Cabrillo Drive in Fremont.

William Lofton, a neighbor, said Popal worked on his car a few years ago, and he struck up a conversation.

"He seemed like a very friendly young man,'' he said. "We talked a long time, we talked about how did he like the neighborhood -- he said he liked it all right.''

The suspect would come over to his house to say hi, Lofton said, adding, "He seemed really nice. That really would be a shock to think it was him."

Neighbors say the family lived on Cabrillo Drive for three years and was known for frequent garage sales in which they would sell everything from DVDs to household appliances.

Records show that Popal's parents declared bankruptcy in 1998 when they were living in Hayward.

Popal also owns a tan stucco home in the Stanislaus County town of Ceres, where a woman who rents from him described him as a quiet man.

Other neighbors said the family usually kept to themselves. Frank Silva, who lives next door to the suspect, said the family asked him to keep an eye on their house about a month ago. They stayed in Afghanistan for about a week, Silva said.

Popal was usually friendly but wasn't talkative lately, Silva said. "It seemed like since he got married he quieted down," he said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... ICTIMS.TMP

The victims: 'No pattern' in targets of rampage
- Vanessa Hua, Tyche Hendricks and Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 30, 2006


The victims of Tuesday's hit-and-run carnage were men and women, old and young, black, white and Asian. One was on a bike, the rest on foot.

They were mowed down at 13 locations in San Francisco. The lone fatality was in Fremont, a 54-year-old man hit as he walked along a bike lane in an area without sidewalks.

At least 14 people were sent to the hospital.

"There appears to be no pattern," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Police believe the first victim was a Fremont man, whose identity was not released Tuesday evening. He was walking north on Fremont Boulevard near Ferry Lane when the suspect, 29-year-old Omeed Aziz Popal, swerved into the bike lane and struck him, police say.

The victim landed in a vacant lot between a boarded-up Victorian house and St. James Apostle Catholic Church. Authorities did not release his identity pending notification of next of kin.

Authorities believe the suspect then drove to San Francisco, where the rampage continued.

One of the victims was Vera Jenkins, 40. She had just left her home in San Francisco's Western Addition to meet her husband for lunch and was in the crosswalk at Bush and Pierce streets when a black sport utility vehicle plowed into her from behind.

"She said he seemed to slow down and then gunned his motor at my wife," said Jenkins' husband, Walter DeFrantz, who rushed to the scene after his sobbing wife called him on her cell phone.

The impact shoved Jenkins into a pole before she fell to the ground. She had a hard time getting up, her husband said. Witnesses rushed to her aide and called for an ambulance. She was taken to Kaiser Permanente and was listed in fair condition.

DeFrantz said no bones were broken, "but she's sore as hell."

Pedro Aglugov, 70, was hit while walking in a crosswalk. Afterward, he sat at a sidewalk cafe at California and Fillmore streets with his head bandaged with gauze, holding an ice pack to one elbow.

"Somebody hit me and didn't stop. He was going real fast. I was lucky I wasn't hurt more," he said. Aglugov was taken to the hospital later, becoming the fourth person hospitalized from that intersection.

About half the victims were taken to San Francisco General Hospital, the city's trauma center.

As of Tuesday evening, one remained in intensive care in critical condition, two were held overnight with less serious conditions, two were released, and two were still being treated in the emergency room and were expected to be released, said Eileen Shields, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health.

One of those discharged was a 23-year-old man who said his name was Jesse.

"The car came after me. I'm lucky to be alive. Life is good," he said as he walked slowly out of the hospital. He gave no other details of what happened or where.

Shonna Hall received a call around 1 p.m. that her uncle, Leon Stevens, was hit by a car. A nurse practitioner pulled him to safety, found a cell phone in his pocket and dialed the last number called. It was Hall.

The niece rushed to S.F. General from her home in American Canyon. Her uncle, a 56-year-old retiree who was still hospitalized Tuesday evening, broke his legs in multiple places and possibly his back.

Hall said she didn't ask her uncle many questions but knew that he was on his way to church. She wasn't sure where he was run down. Stevens is not married and has no children, Hall said.

Newsom, who visited some of the victims at S.F. General, said, "Most were in shock." He also described them as "remarkably lucid."

Four victims were treated at St. Francis Hospital. One man, with minor abrasions, walked in on his own; the others came by ambulance. All were listed in stable condition, according to hospital officials.

Two elderly men were treated at California Pacific Medical Center and were reported to be in stable condition with minor injuries.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 393343.htm

Posted on Tue, Aug. 29, 2006

Relatives: Rampage suspect may have been stressed over wedding

By James Hohmann and Katherine Corcoran
Mercury News

Relatives of a Fremont man connected to Tuesday's deadly driving rampage said he may have been distraught after returning recently from Afghanistan without his newlywed wife who iswaiting for a visa.

Omeed Aziz Popal, 29, who sources said was being held by the San Francisco police, was normally a kind and gentle person, said Hamid Nekrawesh, 43, a first cousin in Fremont.

But a recent trip to Afghanistan to participate in an arranged marriage could have caused him a lot of stress, Nekrawesh said.

``He was a very respectful, quiet, nice guy,'' Nekrawesh said. ``I've never seen him do anything violent.''

Zarghona Ramish of San Jose, who also identified herself as Popal's cousin, said he had been having strange dreams since returning a month ago from Afghanistan.

Popal lives with his parents, younger brother and two younger sisters in a working-class neighborhood of one-story tract homes in west Fremont, Nekrawesh said. He worked at a Fremont tire store on Mowry Avenue, neighbors and relatives said, and he and his father also sold household items at Bay Area flea markets.

He was born in Afghanistan, but came to the United States at a young age. Three months ago, he returned to his home country to marry, relatives said, and his wife's family was very traditional and strict.

``He grew up as a Western boy in the United States and went to Afghanistan to get married culturally over there,'' Nekrawesh said.

Nekrawesh wondered if the stress of the trip and the culture shock had an impact on Popal, especially given that Afghan weddings are very large, and Popal comes from a large extended family.

The bride's family didn't allow the couple to meet or talk before the wedding, Nekrawesh said.

``The only thing would be some kind of mental pressure,'' Nekrawesh said, adding that Popal seemed happy before leaving for Kabul. ``The lifestyle is very different in Afghanistan.''

On Tuesday afternoon, three police officers stood in front of the tan Cabrillo Drive house where police believe the driver lives. Crime scene tape blocked the house, and police said they were trying to obtain a search warrant.

Two doors down, longtime resident William Lofton said the family moved into the house about three years ago.

``He never spoke,'' Lofton said of Popal. ``He never said hello. He was quiet. He never opened his mouth.''

He said the family owned a black SUV, the car that police say was involved in Tuesday's attack, but Lofton said he usually saw a woman driving it.

tagMercury News staff writer Leslie Griffy contributed to this report. Contact Katherine Corcoran at kcorcoran@mercurynews.com or (40 920-5330.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and he was just talking about this incident. He was sort of implying it might be a terrorist attack. Also this seems eerily similar to the SUV crashing into people on a North Carolina campus earlier in the year. Link below.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=18316

M Malkin is also suspicious of this incident.

http://michellemalkin.com/index.htm

Thanks for the Malkin link. I'll import this part over that is significant.

The SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the rampage ended.
Blood covered the sidewalk in front of the center's gift store entrance, and 50 feet farther down the sidewalk lay a mangled bicycle.

Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m., according to Aaron Rosenthal, spokesman for the community center.

IMMIGRATION STATUS & NATIONALITY UNKNOWN (BECAUSE HE'S NOT A WHITE MAN?)

Claim: San Fran killer called himself 'terrorist'

14 injured, 1 dead, in hit-and-run rampage
by man recently returned from Afghanistan

Posted: August 30, 2006
2:22 p.m. Eastern

By Art Moore
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A woman claims she heard the man who drove into 14 people, killing one, in a violent hit-and-run rampage in San Francisco yesterday refer to himself as a terrorist.

KTVU-TV San Francisco reporter Rob Roth told WND the witness at the scene of Omeed Aziz Popal's arrest heard the 29-year-old man say, to no one in particular: "I'm a terrorist, I don't care."

Popal, of nearby Fremont, Calif., recently returned from Afghanistan where he married an Afghan woman in an arrangement by his family.

Roth said the witness would not give her name and didn't want to go on camera. He pointed out a woman next to the witness nodded in affirmation as Popal's words were recalled.

San Francisco police, however, came to a quick determination yesterday that Popal's 20-minute drive of carnage in his Honda Pilot SUV – said by relatives to be completely out of character – was not an act of terrorism.

Sgt. Steve Mannina, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, told WND he had not heard the woman's claim about Popal and could not confirm it.

Mannina said the department's command staff released a report last night determining it was not an act of terrorism. He could not provide details as to how the department arrived at that determination and how it came about so quickly.

Bloodied sheets and rags on sidewalk in front of Jewish Community Center in San Francisco after yesterday's hit-and-run rampage. (San Francisco Chronicle)

In similar solo attacks by Muslim men in recent years – including a deadly attack on a Jewish center in Seattle last month – authorities have been quick to dismiss terrorism as a possible motive.

Two of Popal's victims yesterday reportedly were struck in front of a San Francisco Jewish Community Center.

Some of Popal's relatives have said he might have been distressed by his return to the U.S. without his newlywed wife, who awaits a visa.

Roth told WND he mentioned the witness's claim at the end of a TV report yesterday as an aside, only because a police spokesman brought up the issue of terrorism "out of the blue," without any prompting.

Roth said he asked spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens yesterday, "Why did you even get into that?"

Gittens replied, according to the TV newsman, "Because I know it's out there, and I want to dispel it."

Another KTVU report provided background on Popal, quoting family members who had a hard time believing he could be responsible for hurting, let alone killing someone.

A cousin, Hamid Nekrawesh, told KTVU: "I've never seen him violent. I've never seen him fight or have any big argument with anybody before."

Another cousin, Zarghona Ramish, said, "He's very good person. He's not like that that. I don't know why ... what's wrong with him."

Ramish, however, said Popal had disturbing dreams before his trip to Afghanistan.

"The devil come all the time close to him and he wants to kill him," she recounted, adding Popal had such a dream "several times."

Popal was born in Afghanistan but came to the U.S. at a young age, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The paper said he returned to his home country to marry, according to relatives, and his wife's family was very traditional and strict.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Popal's "day of carnage" began in Fremont at about noon when he ran over and killed a 54-year-old man.

The first call to police came in at 12:47 p.m. yesterday after he plowed into another vehicle at Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near the San Francisco's Civic Center.

Within minutes, the paper said, Popal sped into the nearby hills "ripping back and forth through a 15-square-block area like a ripsaw on four wheels, leaping curbs, cutting corners and tearing the wrong way through traffic.

Throughout the chaos, the Chronicle said, "only one thing seemed clear: The driver was on a hunt. A hunt for humans."

In March, a recently graduated student at the University of North Carolina, Iranian immigrant Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, drove an SUV into a crowded pedestrian zone, striking nine people. Regarded as a serious student who was "shy but friendly," Taheri-azar said he did it "out of love for Allah."

"Allah gives permission in the Quran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Quran's 114 chapters," wrote Taheri-azar in a two-page letter sent to a television reporter and anchor at WTVD-TV, an ABC affiliate in Durham.

Last month, Naveed Afzal Haq of Pasco, Wash., broke through security at the Jewish Federation Center in Seattle and announced to staff members: "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel." The 30-year-old immediately began shooting randomly with a semiautomatic 9-mm handgun at the 18 employees and visitors in the offices.

In January 2004, after apparently undergoing a religious awakening, a Saudi Arabian student in Houston killed his Jewish friend by slashing his throat. Mohammed Ali Alayed, 23, pleaded guilty to the Aug. 6 attack on Ariel Sellouk, also 23, who almost was decapitated with a knife. Houston police said no clear motive had been established, but Alayed went to a local mosque after the slaying.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=51749