Camera captures hit-&-run, passersby ignoring injured victim
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San Francisco (KPIX) — Last week, a pedestrian was hit by a car in San Francisco’s Excelsior District. While he survived, what surveillance cameras captured of the incident has shaken people’s faith in humanity.
Arnulfo Villanueva walks gingerly these days. While his shoulder and hand are still in pain, he is very fortunate to be alive.
Villanueva was walking along London Street when he went to cross at Brazil Avenue last Thursday.
Surveillance video shows an approaching car seeming to slow a bit and then just ran through the stop sign, hitting Villanueva, sending him flying into the middle of the street.
Afterwards, the driver pulled to the right like he was going to stop.
“He stopped for, like, a couple seconds and then he left,” Villanueva told KPIX 5. “For a minute, I thought he was stopping, you know, to see if I was okay, but he didn’t care. He just left.”
From there, a bad story gets even worse. As Villanueva lay injured in the middle of the street, no fewer than four drivers swerved around him to pass by without stopping.
“It was scary, seeing people, cars pass by,” said Arnulfo. “They didn’t care about it, you know?”
Miguel Rubio said his nephew captured the hit and run on camera. Rubio couldn’t believe it when he saw the video.
“What’s happened to the ‘human’ thing, you know?” Rubio said. “No one stopped! No one stopped to help this guy.”
“They just drove around him like he was some piece of trash that was just laying there,” said Jasmin Martinez.
The camera at Martinez’s home recorded the cars swerving around Villanueva. Martinez believes COVID-19 may now be robbing people of their basic humanity.
“People have learned to stay away from people, have learned to mind their own business,” Martinez said. “And I feel like that starts to apply to everyday things now. Not only just your health, but now it’s applying to the way you see other people, the way you walk down the street.”
The entire ordeal has changed the way Arnulfo Villanueva walks down the street. He said he’s afraid to cross the road if any cars are near. He no longer believes that people will care enough to stop.
“I don’t trust people no more,” Villanueva said. “To be honest, I don’t trust no more.”
Villanueva said he filed a police report and was told they would contact him if there was a break in the case. As of Wednesday, he’s heard nothing.
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