Dorsey demands strong response after SoMa hit-and-run killing

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey is pressing city leaders to treat the SoMa hit-and-run death at Mission Street and South Van Ness Avenue as more than another grim traffic case, putting pressure on police and prosecutors to show that accountability can mean arrest, charges and lasting street-safety fixes.

The crash happened at about 3:23 p.m. on April 13, 2026, in one of San Francisco’s busiest pedestrian corridors. Officers and paramedics found a deceased adult at the scene, and investigators used the Real Time Investigation Center to track the suspect vehicle onto the freeway before San Francisco Sheriff’s deputies helped stop it near Potrero Avenue and 18th Street.

Police identified the driver as 30-year-old Valentino Cash Amil of San Francisco and booked him into San Francisco County Jail on homicide and felony hit-and-run charges. By April 16, prosecutors had charged Amil with murder in connection with the killing of 74-year-old Dannielle Spillman, whose death has sharpened questions about how aggressively the city responds when a driver’s conduct crosses from reckless driving into a homicide case.

The case has added force because of where it happened. Mission and South Van Ness sit at the edge of SoMa, a corridor packed with transit riders, pedestrians and drivers moving through the city’s center, making any violent crash there a public warning as much as a criminal case. Video of the collision, which showed the sedan striking Spillman and continuing on, has made the incident especially hard to dismiss as an accident.

Amil’s defense attorney has disputed the government’s account, saying the driver feared for his family’s safety and that the pedestrian appeared intoxicated and belligerent. Those claims have not been confirmed by police. The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has said it was reviewing the case, and the murder charge signals that prosecutors are treating the crash as a far more serious allegation than a routine traffic fatality.

Dorsey’s response also reflects a broader political shift in City Hall. A former San Francisco Police Department communications director, he has backed tougher penalties for sideshows and stunt driving, including legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2024. That push now collides with a city that adopted Vision Zero in 2014, marked 10 years of the policy in March 2024 and later said traffic violence still threatens lives and quality of life.

The stakes are heightened by the city’s own assessment of its failures. The 2025 Civil Grand Jury said 2024 was San Francisco’s deadliest year for traffic deaths since 2007 and noted that traffic citations had fallen to near-zero levels in 2022. In SoMa, where the death of Dannielle Spillman has become a fresh test of public trust, the question is whether the city can move from outrage to consequences before the next crash forces the issue again.