A vigil is being held Monday for Dannielle Spillman, the 74-year-old pedestrian who was fatally struck in SoMa by a driver who appeared to intentionally run her over. Leading up to her death, she told friends that SF felt less safe as a trans woman now than in the 1990s.

A vigil is being held Monday evening at Real Guitars in SoMa honoring 74-year-old Dannielle Spillman, who was struck and killed last week near Mission and South Van Ness, as KGO reports. Police arrested 30-year-old Valentino Cash Amil, who allegedly fled the scene, and he faces a murder charge with a deadly weapon enhancement and felony hit-and-run, as SFist reported last week.

Spillman, a longtime fixture in the local music scene, was known for spending time at Real Guitars and Guitar Center, often arriving with treats and striking up conversations with staff, according to Mission Local. Friends described her as generous and deeply supportive, and someone who opened her home to others and stayed devoted to music through a patchwork of jobs.

“Dannielle Spillman was just one of the nicest, most personable people,” said Guitar Center employee Connor McKeon. “She was someone that would come in to hang out. She knew everyone’s name and she knew all of our backstories.”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys offered conflicting versions of the moments leading up to Spillman’s death in court last week, centering on a confrontation captured on surveillance video, as previously reported.

Investigators say Valentino Cash Amil had just left a Chevron at 1601 Mission Street and was pulling onto Mission while partially blocking the sidewalk when Spillman approached the car. According to court records, the two exchanged words before Spillman moved in front of the vehicle and poured liquid from a water bottle onto the hood.

Authorities allege Amil then accelerated, striking her and lifting her onto the hood before she fell into the street, where he drove forward and ran over her.

Defense attorney Seth Morris said Amil believed his family was in danger and was trying to leave the area, describing the collision as a result of panic as he drove off with relatives in the car. Medics pronounced Spillman dead at the scene minutes later.

The SF Standard reports that in the months leading up to her death, Spillman told friend Derrick Guerra she felt increasingly unsafe navigating the city, describing multiple confrontations in which strangers misgendered her and, in one case, attempted to hit her at a bus stop.

She also reported ongoing issues at her apartment building, where a pest-control worker repeatedly referred to her as “sir” during a dispute over access to her unit, and said she had felt safer as a transgender woman in San Francisco decades ago than she does now.

Additionally, after her death, some early media coverage misgendered Spillman and incorrectly described her as homeless, prompting pushback from local advocates, per the Standard.

The death marked San Francisco’s eighth pedestrian fatality of the year. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose district covers SoMa, called the case “brutal,” per KGO.

“We have to do what we can, but we also we have to understand somethings,” said Dorsey, “like the crash here I don't think there is a single thing that we could've done in terms of designing a street safer or camera --- in fact there was a camera that caught and that wasn't a deterrent. We all have to do better.”

Friends say Monday’s vigil is focused on honoring Spillman and correcting the record about who she was — “a caring, giving, loving person.” The invitation asks attendees to bring a candle or another source of light to honor Spillman’s life and “hold space for one another.”

“Danielle was a beloved elder,” says the invitation, “and her presence mattered deeply to those who knew her and to the community she was part of.”

Valentino Cash Amil is due back in court Friday.

Previously: Mercedes Driver Charged With Murder After Hit-and-Run In SoMa

Image: Reddit

Family members held a vigil Thursday honoring the family of four that was tragically killed by a driver in West Portal two years ago, and advocacy groups are reminding Mayor Daniel Lurie that the 100-day deadline on his Street Safety Initiative is next week.  

Dozens gathered outside the West Portal Library on Thursday for a vigil marking two years since a driver killed a family of four — Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, Matilde Moncado Ramos Pinto, Joaquin, and Cauê — at a nearby bus stop.

Relatives traveled from abroad to join the community, many meeting in person for the first time to mourn together, as NBC Bay Area reports. Photos of the victims were hung along a clothesline near the crash site, where attendees left messages remembering the family.

As KTVU reports, family members hosted the vigil with support from Walk San Francisco and the Bay Area chapter of Families for Safe Streets.

"The loss is still here. We feel it every day," said Denise Cardoso de Oliveira, Diego’s sister, per KTVU. "Tonight, it’s not just about grief. It’s about love. It’s about connection. It’s about remembering the energy they brought into this world."

As SFist has previously reported, the family was fatally struck by now 80-year-old Mary Fong Lau, who was charged in July 2024 with four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter after allegedly crashing into the family at 70 miles per hour. Last month, Lau changed her plea from not guilty to no contest, allowing the case to be treated as a conviction without going to trial. The plea follows an earlier attempt in January to have the charges reduced.

"It doesn’t feel like she has any remorse," said Fabio Benedetto, a friend of the couple, speaking to KTVU. "She never said I’m sorry. She never looked to the families."

Judge Bruce Chan indicated he is unlikely to impose prison time given Lau’s age and lack of a criminal record, and she’s likely to receive two to three years of probation and a temporary driving ban, per KTVU.

Relatives of the family are pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit, while alleging Lau and her family have attempted to shield assets by transferring properties out of her name.

KTVU reports that family members created an online petition urging the judge to revoke Lau’s license and to impose house arrest and mandatory, "meaningful" community service.

In a Walk SF’s release, the group noted that the 100-day deadline for SF Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Street Safety Initiative, which he authored and signed in December, is next Wednesday.

“We are eager for Mayor Lurie to share what the progress has been,” said Walk SF. “Within the Street Safety Initiative, Mayor Lurie did something no previous mayor has: created a first-ever Safe Streets Task Force within the Mayor’s Office.”

The group highlighted the alarming number of pedestrian deaths that have occurred in San Francisco in recent weeks, including a two-year-old girl at a Mission Bay intersection in late February, emphasizing the need for immediate solutions.

“San Francisco is reeling from a recent surge in pedestrian deaths,” said WalkSF in a press release. “In the course of just five weeks, five pedestrians – including a two-year old girl – were killed in traffic crashes across San Francisco.”

“If this new Task Force can get agencies working together more efficiently,” said Walk SF, “it could help deliver more safety solutions at the scale needed and prevent them from being watered down or delayed.”

Organizers are raising funds for a permanent memorial in front of the West Portal Library, with donations through Livable City.

Previously: Driver In West Portal Crash That Killed Family of Four Pleads No Contest, Judge Sounds Lenient

Top image: Walk SF/Facebook

Friday night around 7 p.m., hundreds gathered at The Castro's Harvey Milk Plaza — hearts heavy, tears in their eyes, covering lit wicks from modest breezes — to both mourn and celebrate the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

This omnipresent feeling of dread and despondency that 2020 has bestowed on all of us is hard to shake loose. It feels like nothing worse can happen this year; then it does — coming down with a heart-sinking heaviness. One blaze begins dying out, another one starts growing. Tens of housands continue to die from COVID-19 deaths. (The guy or gal or non-binary royalty you had feelings for ghosted you... amid a pandemic.) So the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is as inconceivably horrible as it is soberingly fit in this, truly, hellacious year.

Yes: it feels like we're all doomed.

But that feeling of sinking hopelessness isn't what RGB would've wanted. After all, one of her dying wishes, per multiple news sources, was that her seat on the Supreme Court not be filled until there's a new commander-in-chief in The Oval Office. And with that galvanized sense of resilience, strength, and resistance was palpable in The Castro yesterday evening as hundreds chorused, clapped, and marched to honor the late judiciary powerhouse.

“For the LGBTQ community — for us — elections and the courts are a matter of life and death,” said Senator Scott Wiener Friday to the crowds huddling outside of the popular watering hole Twin Peaks. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped create so much of the modern civil rights framework legally. There will never be another like her.”

As KQED notes, the gathering initially numbered somewhere near 200, but soon ballooned into 500 as people began slowly marching toward Harvey Milk's former camera shop on Castro Street. Prior to the trudging, remakes from Cleve Jones, District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, and other local notables were given that paid homage to the 87-year-old justice who passed away earlier in the day due to complications from advanced pancreatic cancer.

(I, too, was in the candlelit crowd last night; I needed to find myself in the air of a collective catharsis — if for no other reason that to save my mind from going down a dark alleyway it had no business being in. One woman close to me was openly sobbing, all while shielding her candle's flame from the mild wind and ricocheting tears. Another individual — who appeared just shy of six-feet tall, their long dirty-blonde hair strung high like festival cotton candy — gazed out at the crowd. I later crossed paths with them, albeit in a socially distant manner, when they said to me through their mask "it feels like the end... but there's no other place I'd rather be than here if it really is that.")

Per the media outlet, Mandelman said he had “been a mess” since he heard the news, which reads as incredibly relatable. The SF supervisor continued to wax on the day's heaviness, adding that it's up to us to keep Trump from appointing Ginsburg’s successor.

Alex U. Inn, a fervent community organizer who helped put together the last-minute gathering — they were was also a part of June's "People's March & Rally" that Juanita MORE! also played a role in — told the Chronicle “people came out because they wanted community.” Inn also made sure to note that Ginsburg’s last vote “saved our transgender community."

Alas, it's now our job, as an engaged and cerebral cohort, to save her legacy — and stand for the inclusive visions she was so adamantly fighting tooth and nail for.

If you missed last night’s candle vigil and march, check out some of our favorite photos of the evening's mass mourning and rallying, below.

Related: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Dead. We're All Doomed.

'People's March & Rally' Reminds San Francisco the Fight for Equality Isn't Over on SF Pride's 50th Anniversary

Image: Matt Charnock / SFist

A vigil to honor those killed in the Paris attacks on Friday night happened at 3 p.m. Sunday in front of City Hall, which lit up in tribute of the French flag's tricolor earlier this weekend.

KRON 4 has some footage from the event, which drew hundreds to the steps of City Hall.

Bay Area residents have already come together throughout the weekend to mourn the attacks. As S.F. Gate reports, a vigil on Saturday night brought more than one hundred people outside the French Consulate on Kearney Street. Many started singing the French national anthem, "La_Marseillaise" which includes the line:Contre nous de la tyrannie, l'étendard sanglant est levé," translated as "Against us tyranny raises its bloody banner."

Even the rain couldn't remove the makeshift memorial in front of the French Consulate; this morning, after the rain stopped, building workers replaced the flowers, candles, and tokens that had been left in tribute:

As a sister city to Paris, San Francisco has close ties to the city, and many Bay Area residents have been touched by the attacks. Marine Thomas, a Paris native who lives in Redwood City, got a phone call from her father on Friday night, who was in the Bataclan in Paris when the gunmen entered, she told S.F. Gate. "My dad called me and said, 'Somebody is here; they’re shooting.' And then he hung up,” Thomas said. Her father called back later—he was unharmed, having crawled backstage and escaping out of the theater.

Alice Waters' daughter Fanny was apparently having dinner "down the street" from one of the restaurants that was targeted, too, but was ok.

San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated 35 years ago today. To mark the occasion, a candlelight vigil will start at Milk Plaza at 7pm followed by a candlelight march down Market Street to City Hall. Other highlights? A performance by the Gay Men's Chorus, a speech by Oscar-winning Dustin Lance Black (Milk), and a recorded message from Harvey Milk.

The vigil's official Facebook page has more:

Harvey and George were the brightest beacons of hope for San Francisco’s disenfranchised and displaced. But more than that, they represented the spirit of San Francisco, a city for anyone and everyone, welcoming to all, affordable to all, with justice for all. 35 years later, the time has come again for us to gather, one and all, to remember Harvey and George. More importantly, the time has come to make their vision of a city of hope come alive. Now more than ever, we have to give each other hope.

Indeed.

RSVP here.

Untitled photo by Troy Holden.

A candlelight walk and community vigil will be held to honor slain (if you will) cyclist Yannick Linke (Nils Linke) who was killed by an allegedly intoxicated motorist on Masonic last week. Tonight's gathering will shed light on both the life of Linke and a resolution "to make city streets safe for all users." Details:

Candlelight Walk and Community Vigil
When: Wednesday, August 25
Where: Gather at the San Francisco Day School courtyard (350 Masonic at Golden Gate Avenue)
Time: 8 p.m.

Those who cannot attend or want to help out are asked to donate to Doctors Without Border. Bike NOPA has more:

The family of the young man killed in a bicycle collision August 13th suggests that any donations made in his honor be directed to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a private, non-profit international aid organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its medical humanitarian work. Sophia Linke, the sister of Yannick Linke, explained that her family discovered that he had donated to MSF shortly before his death. A Candlelight Walk and Community Vigil will be held Wednesday at 8pm to honor Linke, observe his tragic passing, and resolve to make city streets safe for all users.

For more details on how to donate in Linke's name, go here.

Yesterday in San Francisco's Union Square, many people gathered at the Gaza Memorial, Interfaith Service, and Candlelight Vigil to remember the some 1,400-plus men, women and children killed in the attack on Gaza. The vigil appeared to lack the usual fetishism that befalls SF protests -- due in part to many residents being back at their parents' estates or traveling abroad to celebrate the holidays -- the protest seemed a peaceful and effective one.

Steve Rhodes snapped these shots from yesterday's scene. Enjoy.

19-year-old Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Mercado was stabbed, dismembered and beheaded last week by 25-year-old Juan Martinez Matos, and Matos has since confessed to the crime using the gay panic defense. Matos was allegedly out looking for women in an area known for prostitution, and he met Mercado, who was there dressed in drag. Upon discovering that Mercado was a man, Matos stabbed him, and proceeded to dismember the body in a rage.

Gay activists have been furious that the Puerto Rican government did not immediately charge Matos with a hate crime. Puerto Rico has had a hate crime law on the books since 2002, however the law has not once been applied to a case involving sexual orientation. Last night there were vigils across the country to pay respect to the memory of Mercado, and to protest hate crimes against LGBT people in general. Supervisor David Campos led the Castro gathering. (Watch above.) After the jump, a recent photo of Jorge Mercado.

Thousands of marchers headed toward Civic Center. Buoyant crowd. Choppers, fixed wing aircraft overhead. More photos to come.

Also, as of 6:30 Van Ness is shut down at City Hall due to a "suspicious device."

Follow the jump to view footage of this afternoon's vigil at Casto and Market.