Transgender driver kills illegal; SF sympathy for the murderer!

[Leogeddon]

Originally Posted by San Fransisco Chronicle

The Jaguar driver who police said veered onto a Mission District sidewalk at high speed and killed a cafe worker was recently released from prison and was barred from driving, having been punished with license suspensions three times this year, records show.
Jason Yantes was charged Tuesday with felony vehicular manslaughter and unlicensed driving, and was also accused of violating probation orders handed down after a drug-dealing conviction. Yantes is expected to be arraigned today.

Prosecutors reviewed, among other evidence, footage from a private surveillance camera that captured the crash, authorities said.

Police said Yantes either passed out or fell asleep just after 8 a.m. Monday and ran over Gaspar Caballero, 27, in a 1992 Jaguar convertible XJS that was traveling north on Mission Street near 21st Street. Police said the car was going faster than the 25-mph speed limit.

Yantes, a San Francisco resident, has struggled with drug use, said Miss Major, the organizing director of a nonprofit group with which Yantes volunteered.

San Francisco authorities said Yantes turned 36 on Tuesday, but state records show Yantes is 35 and has a birthday in late October.

Yantes remains at San Francisco General Hospital, where she is recovering from facial and skull injuries suffered in the crash. A law enforcement source said Yantes had cried and expressed remorse for Caballero's death.

"She was dealing with a lot of stuff," said Major, of the Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project, which advocates for transgender inmates. Yantes is a transgender person who identifies as a woman and goes by the name "Lala," Major said.

She said Yantes' best friend died about two weeks ago from a drug overdose.

"This is not something she's going to live with quietly," Major said of the fatal crash. "It's really going to eat her up."

State records show Yantes has past felony convictions for receiving stolen property, burglary and forgery, and has been in and out of prison since 1999. She has a history of being sent back to prison for violating parole, and was most recently released July 2.

The Department of Motor Vehicles said Yantes, while out of prison earlier this year, repeatedly failed to appear in court to deal with citations. Records show she was ticketed for driving without a license and without proof of registration or insurance.

San Francisco police Inspector Matt Krimsky said he was awaiting test results of blood drawn from Yantes after Monday's crash before concluding whether she had been intoxicated. He said a gun that police found in the car turned out to be a plastic replica.

The victim in the crash, Caballero, worked at Cafe La Taza a block north of where the accident happened. Cafe owner Noel Martinez said Caballero made sandwiches at the cafe and had been on his way to buy ingredients at a nearby market when he was struck.

San Fran was never a place I wanted to go, you never know who's a guy or girl and if they're a guy, you probably wouldn't wanna be around them.