Mirkarimi didn’t tell police about crash in city-owned car

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi enters the debate at Zendesk on Tuesday, August 11, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi enters the debate at Zendesk on Tuesday, August 11, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Amy Osborne, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Amy Osborne, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Mirkarimi didn’t tell police about crash in city-owned car 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi failed to alert police about a collision involving a city-owned car he was driving last year, despite a Sheriff’s Department policy requiring that such accidents be reported, The Chronicle has learned.

The Oct. 2 accident — which was minor and involved no injuries — ultimately led to Mirkarimi having his license suspended in February for failing to file a financial responsibility report with the state Department of Motor Vehicles. On Tuesday, a day after the sheriff said he learned about the suspension from The Chronicle, Mirkarimi filed the proper paperwork and his license was reinstated, DMV officials said.

Under a long-standing policy last revised in May 2013 and signed by Mirkarimi, all crashes involving Sheriff’s Department vehicles have to be reported to police for investigation.

“Failure to obtain information may require an extensive investigation or unnecessary costs” to the city, the policy says. “Every driver of a vehicle owned or operated by the (city) has an obligation to document every collision in an incident report.”

No accident report

However, there is no evidence Mirkarimi told police about the October accident. The Police Department has no accident report on the incident, officials with knowledge of the matter said, and DMV records do not show a police report number.

Mirkarimi said Tuesday night that he made a verbal report to the Sheriff’s Department and believed that was sufficient, despite department policy stating that city employees “contact the law enforcement agency of primary jurisdiction.” In San Francisco, that would be city police, not the Sheriff’s Department.

“I made a verbal report, and I will rectify it if there’s not a hard copy — I will make sure there’s a hard copy to reflect it,” Mirkarimi said. “I just simply did not because I thought my personal insurance was taking care of it. If that was a lapse, I will make sure it is rectified.”

Department officials said in a statement issued Monday that the accident had happened when Mirkarimi was merging out of a closed lane and collided with another car. They did not say where the crash occurred.

Mirkarimi said he gave the other motorist his personal private insurance because the other motorist didn’t trust the city insurance and registration, which says the cars are renewed and registered until 2099.

“When a civilian looks at that, they say, ‘Oh my God, this doesn’t look real,’” he said. “I wanted to make sure it was followed up on.”

He said he contacted his insurance company immediately, and up until this week, believed the company had taken care of the matter.

However, Mirkarimi’s insurance company, CSAA Insurance Group, said Tuesday that it had rejected the sheriff’s claim in December because he hadn’t been driving his private car.

“We reviewed it and determined at that time that, because he was driving a city vehicle, the city would provide coverage because the city is self-insured,” said company spokesman Jason Willett.

“The customer was notified several times that we wouldn’t be processing the claim,” he added.

3 DMV letters to sheriff

The rejection came around the time the Department of Motor Vehicles sent the first of three letters to Mirkarimi informing him of his pending license suspension for failing to file an accident report.

The sheriff never responded, and the third letter came back in February as “undeliverable,” apparently because Mirkarimi had moved without alerting the DMV, said agency spokesman Artemio Armenta. The agency then suspended Mirkarimi’s license.

On June 9, Mirkarimi was ticketed for making an illegal turn at Second and Folsom streets. That same day, Armenta said, the sheriff updated his address with the DMV.

On Tuesday, Mirkarimi’s license suspension was lifted.

“After receipt of the faxed traffic accident form, the information was updated and the suspension action set aside,” Armenta said. “A reinstatement letter will be mailed out to the address on record.”

Mirkarimi said while he believes this “was just some kind of administrative error,” he was taking responsibility for the accident. He said the other motorist never received payment for damages, as the insurance company denied his claim and he never paid out of pocket, but he was taking steps to fix that.

“I just learned all this literally between yesterday and today,” he said. “All this was a surprise. Naturally, we should follow through and make sure it is followed up on.”

Jaxon Van Derbeken and Vivian Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com vho@sfchronicle.com