MUNI TERROR SPREE: Felon accused of three attacks on women in ONE HOUR, plus months of assaults on other riders, is back on the streets
A felon accused of a relentless run of savage attacks on women Muni riders – among them mothers with children and seniors – appeared in a San Francisco courtroom today.
In just one hour on the morning of July 1, Edward McQuillion, 39, is accused of assaulting three lady passengers in separate incidents on buses and light rail vehicles. This capped months of alleged attacks by the defendant on women using the city’s public transit system.
Prosecutors say McQuillion smashed the face of a woman passenger on a 7 bus at 19th Avenue and Lincoln Way at 10:15am. The victim, who saw McQuillion acting “erratically” before the attack, suffered multiple facial fractures, a broken nose and a laceration that required stitches to close.
Minutes later, on an M Line train near Stonestown Galleria, McQuillion is said to have repeatedly punched the head of a woman passenger who screamed “no, no, no!” during the attack.
The badly injured victim told investigators she now suffers from severe anxiety.
McQuillion is then alleged to have punched a woman on a 7 bus near Stanyan and Haight Streets – causing her to collapse screaming to the floor.
Investigators tied McQuillion to a string of earlier incidents. According to court documents, these included his cold-cocking a woman on a 28 bus on 19th Avenue in February and screaming profanities and spitting at a mother riding with her seven-year-old daughter on a 7 bus near 19th Avenue in May.
He is also accused of assaulting an elderly woman in a Walgreens on Market Street in June – repeatedly kicking her walking cane out of her hands.
Fury in his eyes
“She feared for her safety because of the defendant’s actions and the fury in his eyes,” wrote prosecutor Rebecca Warren of the 69-year-old victim in a detention motion. “She told the sheriff’s deputy that she was traumatized and emotionally distressed by the incident.”
McQuillion was finally arrested on July 23.
Remarkably, he was sprung by Judge Gloria Rhynes at his July 29 arraignment. Rhynes, a retired Alameda County judge, was unmoved by prosecutors’ argument that the defendant was obviously dangerous and should be kept in jail, but did insist that he be fitted with an ankle monitor and stay at his Parkmerced home.
She did not bar him from riding Muni.
She was told the defendant has previous felony convictions for robbery and burglary, plus 10 misdemeanor convictions for battery, burglary, theft and driving offenses.
McQuillion appeared this morning in department 18 of the Hall of Justice where he spoke with a courtroom supporter and in an indistinct, slurred and slow manner. Judge Brian Stretch ordered him to return in October for a preliminary hearing, at which a judge will decide whether the case goes to trial.
Outside the courtroom McQuillion’s public defender Tal Klement angrily teed off on an SFPSN photographer – accusing him of breaking the law by photographing his client, and threatening him with legal action.
It is understood McQuillion intends to make a bid for diversion into behavioral health court.
He has pleaded not guilty to nine felony and three misdemeanor assault, battery and elder abuse charges.
SFPD media relations staff, evidently concerned for McQuillion’s privacy, refused an appeal this week to release his mugshot so women Muni riders could take action to protect themselves.
Their chief, Derrick Lew, has continued the policy imposed by his predecessor Bill Scott, who banned the release of arrestee photographs.
For its part, the SFMTA, under chairwoman Janet Tarlov, has spent the past two years on a ‘safety equity action plan’. It has redesigned its harassment feedback form, put a “No Gender-based Harassment” decal in every vehicle, commissioned public service announcements co-created with community groups and begun trialing a solar light at a boarding island on the M Line used by McQuillion. It has told riders that anonymous reports of “unwanted looks” are worth making to 311.
Nowhere in the plan’s 12 pages does the agency call on police to arrest, prosecutors to charge, or judges to keep violent repeat offenders in custody. It records instead that crime on Muni is “low,” and sets itself the task of improving how riders feel about it.
Last week, sex predator Dasan Brown was convicted by a San Francisco jury of the attempted rape of a woman riding a Muni bus last year. Brown was on probation and parole at the time of the attack and had failed to register as a sex offender upon his arrival in the city.
Main picture: Edward McQuillion
Please support our work by making a donation
To be notified of new stories follow us on X
