Let's be very clear about what happened: a 74-year-old woman was struck and killed by a car in what witnesses and evidence describe as a road rage incident. The driver allegedly ran her over. His child was in the backseat.

Now, instead of letting the legal process play out with some semblance of dignity for the victim, the accused killer's family is out in front of cameras painting him as the real victim — a good family man, a loving husband, someone who's been unfairly treated by the system. His wife's public statements have centered her family's suffering, with one particularly tone-deaf claim that "two families were hurt" by this tragedy.

As one SF resident put it bluntly: "Two families were hurt? I'd say one was hurt a great deal worse than the other. She is 'not handling this well'? At least she's alive to handle it."

The facts here aren't ambiguous. A pedestrian — a senior citizen — posed no mortal threat to a grown man sitting inside a two-thousand-pound vehicle. Another local noted the absurdity: "Fearing for your life from a 74-year-old lady with a cup of water, while being inside a 2,000-pound cage — what logic is that?"

We're not in the business of convicting people before trial. That's what courts are for, and we believe in due process. But PR campaigns designed to muddy public perception of a case with clear video evidence aren't due process — they're manipulation. And they disrespect the memory of Danielle Spillman.

San Francisco has spent years grappling with accountability — for criminals, for officials, for institutions. This case shouldn't be complicated. A woman is dead. A man is charged with killing her. Let the evidence speak, and let a jury decide.

What we don't need is a media blitz trying to turn a road rage killing into a Hallmark story about a struggling family. Actions have consequences. That's not cruelty — that's civilization.