S.F. TAXI DRIVER, PASSENGER KILLED IN VIOLENT CRASH
By Marisa Lagos and Josh Wein
Staff Writers
San Francisco Examiner, CA
Oct 11 2005
SAN FRANCISCO – A longtime San Francisco taxicab driver and a
21-year-old Duke University student were killed in Pacific Heights
late Sunday night after their cab was broadsided by an allegedly
drunken driver fleeing the scene of another collision.
The driver, identified as 43-year-old San Francisco resident Kevin
McGuinness, was booked into the jail ward Monday at San Francisco
General Hospital on two felony counts of vehicular manslaughter and
drunken driving, police said. He was treated at the hospital earlier
in the day, SFPD Officer Maria Oropeza said.
Yellow Cab driver Zareh Soghikian, in his 70s, and the front-seat
passenger, 21-year-old Tyler Brown, were killed in the collision.
Brown’s stepbrother and their friend, Michael Giedgowd, were also
injured in the crash but were both in stable condition Monday evening.
Prior to the crash, McGuinness fled from another accident at the corner
of Polk and Washington streets, according to police. Oropeza said the
victim in the first crash followed McGuiness to the intersection of
Broadway and Webster streets, where the alleged drunken driver smashed
into Soghikian’s taxicab on the passenger side. Both Soghikian and
Brown were pronounced dead at the scene.
Oropeza said McGuinness tried to flee the second, fatal scene but
could not get out of his car. Soghikian, a taxi driver in The City
for at least two decades, was described as a well-liked man who
was known within the taxicab community for his work on the union
representing cab drivers. Ruach Graffis at the United Taxicab Workers
said Soghikian was born in Egypt but was Armenian by descent, and
lived on Scott Street in the Marina. He worked nights for Yellow Cab
and ran a travel business during the day, she said.
UTW posted a note on the Web site Monday morning, reading in part,
“Our dear friend and UTW activist Zareh Soghikian got killed Sunday
night in his Yellow Cab #701 … We will miss Zareh in our meetings
and on San Francisco’s streets.”
Brown, originally from Marion, Mass., was months away from earning
a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Duke University and was in
town visiting his stepbrother.
Brown was a member of his campus’ chapter of Engineers Without Borders
and recently traveled to Bande Aceh, Indonesia, to help repair villages
and airstrips damaged by the tsunami, according to a statement from
Duke University.
Brown’s parents arrived in San Francisco on Monday but could not
be reached for comment. Carol Brown, a neighbor from Tyler Brown’s
hometown who is not related to the family, said his death is already
affecting the community there.
“Our whole neighborhood is just devastated,” Brown said. “We are
deeply sad.”