Woman dies after crashing stolen taxi

Police confirmed Thursday that a woman involved in a fatal crash Tuesday night on Third Street in San Francisco’s Bayview District died while driving a taxicab that she had allegedly just carjacked moments earlier.

The suspect driver has been identified by the city’s medical examiner’s office as 25-year-old Chelsea Cole.

The incident began around 9:35 p.m. when a 43-year-old man flagged down officers and said a woman had just stolen his Yellow Cab taxi, police said.

The taxi driver said he’d picked up Cole at Powell and Ellis streets and took her to Dakota Street, where they began arguing about the cab fare.

Cole then allegedly punched the victim several times outside of the vehicle before jumping in the driver’s seat and taking off in the taxi, according to police.

Responding officers began looking for the stolen taxi and immediately located it in the 4300 block of Third Street, where it had apparently crashed into a pole and building, police said in the department’s Bayview Station weekly newsletter.

Officers found Cole on the ground and unconscious. Medical crews pronounced her dead the scene.

A police spokesperson has said another driver was somehow involved in the wreck, stayed at the scene and cooperated with the investigation. No other information about the crash was immediately released.

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