Sanchez Street ends at Cumberland, above the stairs to 19th. On July 22, 2023, a white Lincoln went straight through the barrier. It flipped through the trees and landed on its roof on the sidewalk below, bringing a tree down with it.
It looked like one of Alaska’s Glacier View Car Launch videos: a full-size car sailing off an edge, then crashing back to earth. This one had people inside and a San Francisco sidewalk at the bottom. A witness interviewed by ABC7 estimated the drop at 30 feet, roughly three stories.
Everyone got out. Neighbors helped open the car and pull people free, and the occupants left before police arrived. Two nearby security cameras caught the crash and the scramble afterward.
The sidewalk was clear when the car landed, according to the Dolores Heights Improvement Club. Three walkers had come down the stairs less than a minute earlier, the group said.
Giorgi Kvirkvia was working on a car nearby when he heard the crash. He initially thought the falling debris and tree meant a landslide, SFGATE reported. David Lieb told the outlet he had been reading to his young child when the noise brought him outside.
Everyone got out
A passerby ran to the wreck and forced a door open. Mission Local’s account of the footage counted five people emerging from the car: two headed up the stairs, while one of those who stayed helped pull the last two occupants free. Early reports varied on the number of people inside; SFPD did not give a total.
Kvirkvia told ABC7 he remembered hearing someone say, “We got three minutes, we need to run.” The group moved out of view as sirens approached, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The Fire Department initially reported no injuries at the scene, according to SFist. Police later said one of the suspects needed hospital treatment for crash injuries.
Firefighters put the crash at 7:18 p.m.; police said officers responded at about 7:19. Truck 7 responded, and a tow truck was called to remove the Lincoln, The San Francisco Standard reported.
A carjacking near Dolores Park
The car’s owner approached officers at the wreck and told them his vehicle had been taken while he was sitting in it near 19th and Dolores streets, according to SFPD’s July 26 announcement. He reported non-life-threatening injuries.
An anonymous neighbor interviewed by Mission Local gave a different location: Church and 20th, on the other side of Dolores Park. She described seeing a man struck with a skateboard, then trying to recover his car as a group drove away.
The witness said the sedan headed uphill on Church, turned onto 20th and got caught in weekend traffic near the park. It initially headed east, then turned back west toward Sanchez. “There isn’t really a great getaway on the weekend here,” she told Mission Local.
The dispatch logs connect the two incidents. Dispatch received the reported carjacking call at 7:17:56 p.m. and the crash call at 7:19:53 p.m. The crash was initially labeled “MVA-ROLLOVER”; the other call changed from a stolen-vehicle classification to robbery. The crash log cross-references the carjacking call. Those timestamps are when the calls reached dispatch.
The associated police report is on SFPDcalls under CAD 232032846. The dispatch record gives an anonymized location at 19th and Dolores; the map shows the incident report. The crash and carjacking calls carry report numbers 230512003 and 230512019, respectively. Both are cited in SFPD’s arrest announcement.
Prosecutors declined to file charges
SFPD arrested Kevin Nelson, then 36, and Jennifer Bonham, then 31, on July 25 on the 1400 block of Pine Street. Both were arrested on suspicion of carjacking, receiving a stolen vehicle and conspiracy; Bonham was also booked on suspicion of reckless driving. Nelson was taken to a hospital for crash injuries. Mission Local reported that it was unclear where the named suspects appeared in the footage.
Three days later, prosecutors said they would not file charges at that time. Mission Local reported that further investigation and witness availability were factors. The DA could still bring charges later, according to the Standard.
The July 25 police supplement lists “Cite or Arrest Adult” and “Case Closure.” Those are police report statuses, recorded when the report is filed, as DataSF explains. The police record does not tell us whether prosecutors subsequently filed charges. The later court outcome remains unverified; the arrests and the closure entry do not establish a conviction.