How a robbery led to a crash that killed Mayor Breed’s brother’s girlfriend

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Lentice White was on the cold, dark roadway in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge for less than half a minute before the drunk driver swerved into a closed lane, hit her, and killed her. Shortly before, when a police officer approached her car after a robbery in the Marina district, she got up from the driver’s seat – or she was pushed.

A detailed account of what led to her death that early morning in June 2000 secured a guilty verdict, then faded from memory—until years later the case became known not for its own merits, but for its association with the powers that be. this. The man convicted of White’s death was Napoleon Brown. His sister London Breed became mayor of San Francisco.

Nearly two decades after the case went to trial, that fateful night on the bridge returned to the spotlight when Brown asked the court to reconsider his 44-year sentence for manslaughter. And as these details surface, questions arise about what exactly happened and who is to blame.

Ana Gonzalez, the lead prosecutor in the case, opposed Brown’s new sentencing.

“We think he was the real killer,” she said at an October resentencing hearing. “If a man throws someone under a train, he is a real killer.”

The retrial also raises questions about intent and culpability. Did Brown push White out of the car? Was he responsible for her death moments later from being hit by a drunk driver? What did her last words mean in terms of Brown’s responsibility? What role did the police play in the death?

“Substantial legal doubts still exist,” Brown’s lawyer Mark Silversmith said Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, where he laid out his case about the nature of the role his client played in White’s death.

Complicating matters was the timing of the review. Although it was filed in 2019, some key proceedings in Brown’s resentencing came shortly after Mayor Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins as San Francisco’s district attorney, a conflict that raised concerns about whether anyone could then, appointed by Brown’s sister, it is fair to consider this matter.

Ultimately, Judge Brendan Conroy allowed the case to continue as long as Jenkins remained protected from the case.

Judge Conroy must now decide whether Brown’s sentence should be commuted under a new law that has narrowed the definition of a felony and allowed for repeated sentencing reviews that brought the mayor’s brother into the spotlight.

What happened that night

The summer night of 2000 that led to the case began with Brown and his alleged accomplices, including Sala Thorne, attacking Johnny Rockets workers in the harbor and then fleeing in a car. Although White was driving, it is not clear if she was waiting as an accomplice.

A plainclothes SFPD officer named Gary Watts, who happened to be nearby, spotted the fleeing car and gave chase as it headed north and eventually to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Video of the scene viewed by The Standard shows the Ford Escort coming to a stop in a closed security lane at around 1 a.m. The car stopped in the middle of the bridge between the north and south lanes, near the south tower. Officer Watts stops behind Escort.

Details are hard to make out, but the grainy shots paint the picture in broad strokes, showing two cars parked in a line down the center of the bridge, with little movement around them.

According to court testimony, White then got out of the car as Thorne circled from the passenger seat. Prosecutors allege that Brown was in the back seat in the meantime, a detail disputed by his lawyers, who say there is no evidence to support this.

Witness statements and court documents say that this is when Officer Watts stood on a dark bridge, gun at the ready, yelling, “San Francisco PD! Get down!” It was unclear if the command was directed at White, Thorne, or both of them. White stayed while Thorne got into the Escort and drove off. Within 30 seconds, a drunk driver, later identified as Kermit Allen, drove onto the middle lane and knocked down White.

“I remember seeing her [White] got out of the car,” Watts testified at the trial. “She was out of breath and pulled into the lane.” Watts said he reported on the radio that “[f]The girl got out of the car and ran into runway three, where she was hit and the male passenger took off.” Prosecutors later noted that Watts mistakenly indicated the wrong lane he saw White enter.

The video shows the Escort leaving before another car turns into the center lane and then returns to the south lanes.

Before White died, police said she told them that Brown forced her out of the car.

Brown left the same day. But the police arrested Thorne after finding him with an escort in Marin County; he was eventually acquitted of all charges other than police evasion.

Silversmith says the drunk driver and the cop at the scene were largely responsible for White’s death.

Brown’s lawyer said that Officer Watts was giving orders to hold White when the drunk driver crashed into her. Silversmith said the rookie cop messed things up, that he “had an obligation to protect her and he didn’t.”

“He had no experience, which explains the error,” said Silvermsit. “He didn’t see the car until the escort left.”

Although there is no evidence that Brown ended up in the car, Silversmith said it would have been almost impossible for someone in the back seat to push the driver out of the car.

Even if Brown didn’t touch White, prosecutors say he helped and abetted her death, giving Thorne “nerve”. […] push her out.”

Silversmith says there’s another noteworthy detail, though prosecutors said she had no direct connection to what happened: White was under the influence of cocaine, which could have killed her or at least altered her behavior and perceptions.

Prosecutors, for their part, hold Brown responsible for White’s murder because he should have anticipated oncoming traffic.

“White identified the defendant as the person who pushed her out,” prosecutor Gonzalez said in court. “She said, ‘He threw me out of the car.’

Judge Conroy is due to make a final decision on March 6.

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