SUSPECT BOOKED IN CAB-PICKUP CRASH
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Oct 11 2005
(10-11) 07:50 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — A suspected drunken driver was in
custody Monday after he ran a stop sign in San Francisco and crashed
into a taxi, killing the cab driver and a passenger.
The suspect, Kevin McGuinness, 43, of San Francisco was booked at
County Jail in the Sunday night crash that killed Yellow Cab driver
and cabbie activist Zareh Soghikian, 76, of San Francisco and Duke
University student Tyler Brown, 21, of Marion, Mass., authorities said.
Fellow cab drivers were stunned by Soghikian’s death. Soghikian
represented Yellow Cab drivers on the United Taxicab Workers’ executive
board and had been fighting to get health care benefits for cabbies,
friends said.
“Zareh was a fighter,” said Ruach Graffis, membership secretary for
the taxicab union.
The crash happened about 11:45 p.m. Sunday at Broadway and Webster
Street in Pacific Heights. Police say McGuinness, driving a Toyota
Tundra pickup, ran a stop sign moments after he had fled from a minor
accident about 10 blocks away at Polk and Washington streets.
The Toyota broadsided Soghikian’s Ford Crown Victoria cab, police
said. A witness in the earlier alleged hit-and-run saw the crash and
called police.
Soghikian, a San Francisco cab driver for 25 years, and Brown, who
was sitting in the front seat of the cab, were pronounced dead at
the scene.
Two other passengers, Brown’s half-brother and their friend, Michael
Giedgowd, were injured in the crash. Giedgowd suffered a broken
leg and a hip fracture and was in stable condition at San Francisco
General Hospital. Brown’s half-brother suffered cuts and bruises,
authorities said.
McGuinness was arrested on two counts of vehicular manslaughter and
one count of drunken driving causing great bodily injury.
Relatives of McGuinness declined to comment Monday. His sister, who
did not want her name used, said, “I’m just so emotionally distraught
right now, I can’t answer any questions.”
Brown had been a double major in biomedical and mechanical
engineering at Duke in Durham, N.C. He recently went to help rebuild
the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to
the university. In August, he traveled to Banda Aceh to rebuild
shrimp hatcheries for residents from the nearby village of Lamnga,
officials said.
Brown and other students used palm fronds and fishing nets to design an
aerator to increase shrimp yield and limit erosion of the hatcheries’
dirt walls.
Brown had been excited about the project, saying, “Seeing the
villagers using the aerator, it made me feel good to be physically
doing something to help. Up until that point, I hadn’t applied my
knowledge outside the classroom,” according to the university.
Brown’s family was unavailable to comment.
Soghikian, who was of Armenian descent and grew up in Egypt, ran his
own travel agency, Prestige Travel, from his home on Scott Street in
the Marina district, acquaintances said. While off-duty, he enjoyed
driving his Mercedes-Benz and tending to his cat, friends said.
Fellow cabbies said Soghikian’s death underscored the dangers of
driving in the city.
“I realized that this could be anybody,” said Thomas George-Williams,
40, a National Cab driver and chairman of the taxi union’s board. “We
all encounter situations like this every night. You can avoid it by
luck, but sometimes you don’t stand a chance.”
Another cab driver, Barry Taranto, agreed, saying, “You never
expect that somebody’s going to come barreling through a stop sign
on Broadway. There are so many drunk drivers out there, and you have
to always anticipate what the other driver is going to do.”