A 28-year-old San Francisco man recently appeared in court on DUI and vehicular homicide charges. Authorities say that the man was driving drunk when he caused the wrongful death of a 17-year-old girl. The accident happened at the intersection of Sloat Boulevard and Vale Avenue in San Francisco’s Stern Grove.
The driver’s blood alcohol level was .09 percent, just slightly above the legal drunk driving limit of .08 percent. Police say that the man admitted to drinking before the accident and that testing was not done until hours after he was arrested. This makes it likely that the man’s blood alcohol level was much higher when he hit the student.
Students from the teen’s high school recently remembered her at a track meet. The student was a first season long distance runner on Lowell High School’s track team.
“She’s a good friend to a lot of people who were already on the team for a couple of years,” the team’s coach said. “She worked very hard from the first day on.”
“It’s unbelievable and we are shocked but we know that she is still here, she’s just not physically here but she is still here with us,” one of the teen’s friends said.
The drunk driver faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Source: KGO-TV, “Alleged DUI driver pleads not guilty in San Francisco teen’s death,” Mar. 8, 2013
