Carlo Watson, 57, has been charged with murder, carjacking, and a litany of other crimes after crashing an allegedly stolen city truck into four people at 16th and Potrero streets yesterday morning, killing one.
The victim who was fatally struck has not yet been identified, but police said he was a 58-year-old man.
Watson has been arrested for carjacking before. In April, 2021, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and he was booked by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department for carjacking and receiving stolen property. The District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to questions about how Watson’s earlier case was handled.
Watson was also booked in February, 2023, for “vandalism above $400.”
On Tuesday, Watson allegedly stole a Municipal Transportation Agency truck from an MTA worker at Folsom and Mabini streets at 10 a.m., following a “physical struggle.” A spokesperson for the agency said that the worker suffered “minor injuries.”
Police were told the truck had been spotted at Kansas and 25th streets in the southeast Mission sometime later that morning, and began a pursuit.
Watson crashed the car at the Potrero and 16th intersection sometime before 10:45 a.m., after a chase that involved police officers and sheriff’s deputies. He crashed into a bus stop in front of the Boston Market on the corner, smashing the pickup truck and the store’s windows. Another vehicle was also smashed in the collision.
10:00 a.m. | The city
pickup truck is carjacked
at Folsom and Mabini
Potrero Ave
1
Boston
Market
The car crashes
at 16th and Potrero,
killing one and injuring
at least four others
16th St
3
The allegedly stolen
car crashed and hit
pedestrians here,
becoming wedged
between the bus stop
and the Boston Market
A second car
was also totalled
in the intersection
Officers heard that the
vehicle was at Kansas and
25th, and gave chase.
2
17th St
10:00 a.m. | The city
pickup truck is carjacked
at Folsom and Mabini
1
The car crashes
at 16th and Potrero,
killing one and injuring
at least four others
3
Officers heard that the
vehicle was at Kansas and
25th, and gave chase.
2
3
Potrero Ave
Boston
Market
16th St
The allegedly stolen
car crashed and hit
pedestrians here
A second car
was also totalled
in the intersection
17th St
Map by Will Jarrett. Basemap from Mapbox.
Four people were struck and injured during the crash. One succumbed to his injuries shortly after being struck by the truck. According to a witness, first responders tried to resuscitate the man for 10 minutes, but were unsuccessful.
The other three victims were a 57-year-old woman, a 70-year-old woman, and a 37-year-old man. They were all taken to hospital by ambulance and were treated for “non-life-threatening” injuries, as was Watson.
Watson was formally booked today. As well as carjacking and murder, Watson has been charged with evading an officer, causing injury; vehicular manslaughter; resisting arrest; and multiple driving violations, including reckless driving, failing to stop at lights, and being an unlicensed driver.
The chase involved sheriff’s deputies, as well as police officers. Although it is unusual for deputies in San Francisco to take part in chases, they are authorized to do so as long as the chase is approved by a supervisor.
Kansas and 25th, where the car was spotted, is near San Francisco General Hospital, where many Sheriff’s Deputies are stationed. The police and sheriffs share multiple radio channels.
The police require chases to be approved of and monitored by a patrol sergeant. Their pursuit policy states that supervisors “shall continually evaluate the need for the pursuit against the risk to safety of persons and property. When the risks appear to be unreasonable, the supervisor shall immediately order the pursuit terminated.”
“It certainly was justified to try to stop this person,” said Barbara Attard, an expert in police oversight, given the seriousness of the suspect’s crime. However, she added, driving at high speed in a busy area in the middle of the morning is inherently “very risky.”
Police did not elaborate on the speed of the pursuit, or details of the crash.
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Third offense for carjacking in 4 yrs according to arrest record. Please do a story next on the dips**t judge that let him off for time served or the DA that didn’t press charges, or whatever other flimsy excuse for criminal justice had him out on the street murdering innocent people this time: https://www.localcrimenews.com/welcome/detail/83690506/carlo-watson-arrest.html
Classic ML – find some way to focus on an potential police error and not the suspect’s actions or his extensive record.
Sir —
Come on, dude. What a reach.
JE
This person did a carjacking in 2021, was freed, committed more crimes this year, was freed again, and now he’s killed and wounded innocent bystanders? Who decided to repeatedly free him? Shameful.
How long should someone be imprisoned for carjacking? And in what way will their time in prison make it less likely that they’ll offend again when they get out?
The time in prison is time they are not on the street continuing to terrorize the community. Some people can’t be rehabilitated, so keep them off the street. If they re-offend after being released send them back for another round of prison. For the few who will see the light and find a better way to live – good on them – these people need to be supported.
>How long should someone be imprisoned for carjacking?
Depends on multiple factors, including whether the carjacker was armed and whether they’d done it before. If this particular carjacker did indeed commit a carjacking 25 months ago, do you think they should have been free two days ago?
>And in what way will their time in prison make it less likely that they’ll offend again when they get out?
It’s a big ask to solve the entire field of criminal justice in the comments. Here’s a start:
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/more-humanity-california-prison-life-help-norway/
How long should someone be imprisoned for stealing a vehicle(a deadly weapon) from a unsuspecting innocent person? 10 years minimum. It’s time for consequences.
10 years for the first one sounds fair to me. It is egregious to steal for most people either their most valuable or second most valuable possession and to do so by forceably removing them from it. This is something that warrants a long period of social removal.
I don’t have the answer on how we can rehabilitate criminals. NOT punishing criminals isn’t the solution though.
Pursuit is rarely justified. A motorcyclist is killed during a CHP pursuit that is picked up at the Bay Bridge plaza every few years. I thought SFPD were smarter about chase than CHP, but apparently not.
DPW worker got his 2010 F150 jacked? Let dude have it for an hour, and he’ll ditch it. Buy the DPW worker a new Gatorade and let the detectives work it out.
Allowing people to carjack without attempting to apprehend and prosecute will promote carjacking. Look at our record on property crime. We looked the other way for years and now it is out of control.
Let’s not make the police the enemy yet again. The carjacker stole the car violently (again) and tried to evade the police this killing someone.
Allowing people to violently assault city workers (and anyone else) and steal their vehicles without consequences is a recipe for chaos. I am surprised you cannot see that. If you remove any deterrence effect by simply allowing people to do carjackings, there will be…lots more carjackings. Do you really want to allow rampant unchecked carjackings everywhere just because sometimes (rarely!) a carjacker runs somebody over when the cops try to stop them?
Once carjacker dude started dive bombing intersections heading west on 16th St at 60+ mph at 10 something am, collision became the expected end result.
Your question revamped: given the crime, which put the general public at higher risk, greenlighting or redlighting said pursuit?
It’s a question of numbers. The easier you make it, the more victims you’ll ultimately have – not fewer.
I agree with Jack.
I’m sure the community will jump to the carjacker’s defense for some absurd reason and blame the SFPD for the death of the innocent bystander.
What’s an example of a comment that defends the carjacker?
@Shotwell Resident: you are clairvoyant, as evidenced by the comment at 11:57 pm, complete with an utterly dismissive attitude toward the first victim of the crime (“Buy the DPW worker a new Gatorade”). Things don’t get better if people don’t want them to…