78yo Woman Driving SUV Ploughed Into Family Waiting At Bus Stop Going To The Zoo In San Francisco

🥺 78yo woman driving suv speeding ploughed into family waiting at bus stop going to the zoo in San Francisco killing dad, mom, 1yo toddler. Infant in critical condition at the hospital. He was Associate Creative Director at Apple who came to work in San Francisco from Brazil.

San Francisco Chronicle, 3/20/24:
The driver suspected of barreling into a West Portal bus stop — killing three members of a family and severely injuring an infant — was released from police custody early Wednesday morning, her attorney told the Chronicle.

San Francisco Sheriff’s Office jail records also show that Mary Fong Lau, 78, was no longer in police custody as of Wednesday. The San Francisco resident, who was booked in absentia just one day after the deadly crash on Saturday, had been in police custody at the hospital, records show.

San Francisco Chronicle, 3/19/24:
The three people killed Saturday after an SUV crashed into a West Portal bus stop were a Brazilian-Portuguese family, the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office confirmed Tuesday.

The victims were Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, Matilde Moncada Ramos Pinto, 38, and 1-year old Joaquin Ramos Pinto de Oliveira, medical examiners said.

The family’s injured 3-month-old infant remained hospitalized with life-threatening injuries on Monday, the San Francisco Police Department said.

“Their whole family is gone,” a representative of the the Brazilian Consulate of San Francisco told the Chronicle on Monday, noting that the infant was in intensive care.

Oliveira and Pinto and their children were waiting at the Muni bus stop around noon on Saturday when an SUV barreled into it. The suspected driver of the SUV, Mary Fong Lau, 78, was booked into jail on Sunday and remained in custody on Tuesday, records show.

Oliveira was a Brazilian citizen working in the Bay Area, according to the Brazilian Consulate of San Francisco and Clube de Criacao, a business association in Brazil. Oliveira was an associate creative director at Apple, where he’d worked for four years. His family planned to travel to San Francisco from Brazil to visit the infant, the consulate said.

The business association said Oliveira “had an incredible career outside of Brazil” that included time spent at advertising agencies in London.

“There are no words to express our sadness and our hope that the baby survives,” the association said.

Pinto had a long career in the advertising and film industry and had been an executive producer at Ridley Scott Films since 2022, according to a company press release from that year. The company declined to comment. The Portuguese Consulate of San Francisco declined to comment on her death, saying the Pinto family “is devastated and wants to safeguard its privacy.”

Lau’s attorney, Samuel Geller, told the Chronicle that Lau was still hospitalized as of Monday evening undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the crash.