Police arrest truck driver in connection with fatal San Francisco hit-and-run

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco police have arrested the driver of a tractor-trailer who was involved in a deadly hit-and-run in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood.

The San Francisco Police Department says 65-year-old Oscar Matus was arrested. He is charged with one count of vehicular manslaughter and one count of failure to yield to a pedestrian.

A big rig, pulled over in the most unlikely of places, at the corner of Broadway and Front was the aftermath of an early morning accident.

"It is too early to comment on the mechanics of the incident," said Sgt. Michael Andraychak of the San Francisco Police Department.

By all descriptions, it was tragic and gruesome. At 5:42 am, police say the big rig with a flatbed trailer hit an unidentified 54-year-old man who appears to have been homeless and using a walker at the corner of Mason and Eddy Streets in San Francisco. He got stuck beneath the trailer as it dragged him roughly two blocks to 5th and Market Streets.

Matus kept going until police pulled him over at the corner of Broadway and Front Streets nearly two hours later. He remained there, speaking with investigators, there, until noon.

This morning's accident is the 20th fatality on San Francisco streets, this year---a number that includes pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers, with the Tenderloin ranking as one of the city's most dangerous areas.

"We stopped calling them accidents. We call them crashes," said Tom Maguire, interim director of the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

That department sent investigators into the neighborhood, today, looking for clues to what might have happened.

"Well, they're looking to see are the crosswalks clear, traffic lights properly timed, can you see the traffic lights and the markings?"

The rig belongs to Terraba Trucking, based out of Stockton. That company did not pick up its phone Thursday.