Police: 49ers coach not charged in crash because of officer's discretion

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Palo Alto Police did not cite San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan for causing the car crash in which he was seriously injured because of an officer's discretion, a spokesperson told ESPN.

Shanahan summoned reporters to his office this week to say that he caused the July 14 crash while reaching for his dropped cell phone.

Vehicle collision data reported by the Palo Alto Police to a state database had indicated the other driver, not Shanahan, was at fault. The database also showed Shanahan was in violation of a California law that bars drivers from touching a cell phone while driving.

But Palo Alto Police did not cite Shanahan with violating the law. In a statement to ESPN, a police spokesperson said the attribution of fault to the other driver was the result of "a clerical error." And the responding officer exercised his discretion when determining whether to cite Shanahan.

"It is not uncommon for officers to elect to not issue a citation to either party involved in a collision," the spokesperson said. "Neither party in this situation was provided preferential treatment."

Neither police nor the team have shared an official account of the accident, and both say they do not intend to do so.

California law classifies traffic accident reports as confidential to police and affected parties, and Palo Alto Police denied ESPN's public records requests for the report and officer body camera footage recorded in the aftermath of the wreck.

In his telling to reporters on Tuesday, Shanahan said his iPhone slipped off his lap and between the seat and middle console of his Tesla, and while reaching down to grab it, he veered into oncoming traffic and struck another vehicle driven by a 21-year-old woman who was not seriously injured.

"I went down to look for it and took my eyes off the road for two seconds," Shanahan said. "And as I was coming up, the airbags hit me in my face and they broke my nose and then they said the visor really gashed me." The coach passed around his phone to show reporters a photo of his mangled face taken in the aftermath of the 20-mph wreck. The gash near his eye required 40 stitches, he said. He also had three broken ribs, a broken left hand and a concussion.

"It's like you can see my skull and stuff," Shanahan said.

At the time, Shanahan seemed open to the idea of providing the police report to reporters, but the team's head of security, Jeremy Jones, who was also in the room, overruled the head coach. Jones referred reporters to California vehicle code law and said the team did not think it appropriate to share information that would identify the other driver. When ESPN asked the 49ers for a redacted version of the report that shielded her identity, the team declined, referring ESPN back to Palo Alto Police.

In the meeting with reporters, the coach oscillated between on-the-record and off-the-record responses and answered some but not all questions about the wreck, which Shanahan and the team did not disclose to the public until the eve of training camp 11 days later. That's when it was announced he would not be assuming his full duties while recovering from the concussion.

Shanahan expressed surprise that there's been so much interest in the crash as well as the delay in announcing it.

"I think if I was in trouble with something, we'd have to f-ing explain more," Shanahan said. "I get who I am. I get all that. I just thought once everyone saw that it was all right, that there was no tickets, that there was none of that stuff. I thought everyone would know that. And that hasn't been the case."

According to multiple sources familiar with the Niners' thinking, the delay in announcing the crash came because of multiple factors. They considered the timing of the accident to be during a dead period in NFL news before training camp began, but they also wanted to give Shanahan time to deal with ongoing concussion symptoms. The team also was hoping to gather more information while allowing the authorities to work out any lingering legal details, the sources said.

Team sources told ESPN that Shanahan informed his coaching staff of the accident roughly a week after it happened while his wife, Mandy, reached out to a handful of players to let them know about it. By the time that all happened, the 49ers decided to wait until Saturday when players were to report for the start of training camp and it was clear Shanahan would have to limit his coaching duties, including not participating in his usual pre-training camp news conference, the sources said. General manager John Lynch handled those duties in Shanahan's stead.

The 49ers made Shanahan available to a handful of media after Sports Illustrated reported on a state vehicle collision database that wrongly blamed the other driver.

The police discretion in not charging Shanahan is not a first for Palo Alto. In 2023, another famous distracted driver, Elon Musk, filmed himself -- also piloting a Tesla -- through Palo Alto streets. Reached by The Verge at the time, Palo Alto Police Captain James Reifschneider said, "Had an officer observed the driver with the phone in their hand, they could have issued the driver an infraction ticket for violating California's handsfree law.

"As no officer witnessed it happening in person at the time of occurrence, though, no ticket is forthcoming."

Reifschneider is now the department's chief.