The San Francisco District Attorney is considering amending charges against a 22-year-old motorcyclist first arrested on DUI charges after a cable car operator died two days ago.
District Attorney spokesman Max Szabo on Thursday said prosecutors need more time to figure out what new charges might be filed against William Makepeace of San Francisco, who was arrested in June 2015 on suspicion of felony driving under the influence. "We still need to assess the facts of the case," he said.
Makepeace is accused of being drunk when he slammed into a 50-year-old Reynaldo Abraham Morante, who was getting off the cable car at the corner of Taylor and Francisco streets.
The father of two, suffered a fractured skull and a brain injury and had been on life support on Laguna Honda Hospital. He died two days ago. Colleagues said Morante had worked two years as a cable car operator and 20 years as a Muni driver. Friends said he always had a smile on his face.
As for Makepeace, his LinkedIn page shows that he works in financial sales and analytics at Bloomberg. He is out of custody on $100,000 bail.
At his court appearance, Makepeace did not speak to the media. But his attorney, Doron Weinberg, said outside court that this was a "terrible tragedy" that happened, and his client feels "devastated."
Weinberg also said the facts in the case will show that the accident was "unavoidable."
