Vehicle kills homeless man sleeping in North Beach garage, supervisor says

An SFPD patrol car. An SFPD patrol car. Photo: Filipa Ioannou Photo: Filipa Ioannou Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close Vehicle kills homeless man sleeping in North Beach garage, supervisor says 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

A homeless man who was sleeping in a private parking garage in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood was killed Wednesday after being struck by a vehicle, an official said.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin told The Chronicle that the man — identified by the San Francisco medical examiner’s office as 48-year-old Jonathan Jones — was apparently homeless and had fallen asleep in the garage.

“It is the subject of an ongoing investigation, but that appears to be the case,” Peskin said.

Trish Bubnis, an investigator for the medical examiner’s office, could not yet confirm the cause or manner of death.

Officer Robert Rueca, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, also could not confirm Peskin’s account of events.

“It hasn’t been determined where (Jones) was located when he was struck by the vehicle,” Rueca said. “That’s still under investigation.”

Peskin said he received details of the accident in an update from police, which he receives on a daily basis.

“How he got into a locked garage is unclear, but it is a tragedy,” Peskin said. “Both for the victim as well as the individual driving. My heart goes out to everybody.”

Kelley Cutler, a human rights organizer for San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness, said more than 200 homeless people die on the city’s streets each year.

Cutler said a perpetually long wait list for shelters combined with police sweeps of homeless camps has pushed many of the city’s unsheltered to more dangerous environments.

“It’s against the law to sit or lie down,” she said. “People need to find a place where they can merely exist.”

Cutler said 1,087 people in San Francisco were waiting for a temporary bed Tuesday night, and that the list consistently surpasses 1,000.

“So people think, ‘Why didn’t this guy go to a shelter?’” she said. “Because that’s not an option.”

At about 7 a.m., San Francisco police received a call that a driver had struck a man on the 700 block of Greenwich Street. Officers arrived to find the man suffering from severe injuries.

Paramedics attempted to revive the man, but he was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

The 74-year-old man who was driving the vehicle remained on the scene, police said. No arrest was made.

Megan Cassidy and Erin Stone are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com, erin.stone@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy @erstone7