HEATHER KNIGHT2026年3月23日玛丽·方·刘撞死一家四口的公交车站。车站在车祸中被毁后重建。 Ian C. Bates for The New York TimesIt was a sunny Saturday in the West Portal neighborhood of San Francisco. The public library was bustling, and so were the cafes and ice cream shops.那是一个阳光明媚的周六，旧金山西门社区。公共图书馆里人来人往，附近的咖啡馆和冰淇淋店也同样热闹。Just outside the library, a mother, a father and their two little boys waited for a bus ride to the San Francisco Zoo. A perfect way, the couple figured, to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary.就在图书馆外，一对夫妇带着两个小男孩在等公交车去旧金山动物园。他们觉得这是庆祝结婚四周年纪念日的最完美方式。Then, at 12:12 p.m. on March 16, 2024, a boom shook the neighborhood, and the horror that followed still reverberates in San Francisco today.然后，2024年3月16日中午12:12，一声巨响震撼了整个社区，随之而来的恐怖至今仍在旧金山回荡。A white Mercedes S.U.V. had traveled at highway speeds before it jumped the sidewalk, sheared a street pole, smashed a bolted-down garbage can and obliterated the bus stop. It finally came to a halt when it crashed into a fire hydrant.一辆白色梅赛德斯SUV以高速公路级的速度行驶，突然冲上人行道，撞断一根路灯杆，碾碎一个固定在地上的垃圾桶，完全摧毁了公交车站。最后，它撞上一根消防栓才停了下来。The father, Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, was flung into the air and landed more than 100 feet away, witnesses estimated. The mother, Matilde Ramos Pinto, was trapped in the wreckage, fading in and out of consciousness.父亲迭戈·卡多索·德·奥利维拉被甩到空中，目击者估计落地时距离现场超过30米。母亲马蒂尔德·拉莫斯·平托被困在车祸残骸中，意识时断时续。Nearby, her baby cried.她的小婴儿在一旁哭泣。“I was talking to the lady and making sure she stayed awake,” recalled Rolf O’Grady, who rushed to the scene after hearing what he thought was a bomb going off. “She didn’t say a word. I just kept telling her that her baby was fine.”“我当时在跟那位女士说话，想让她保持清醒，”罗尔夫·奥格雷迪回忆道。他在听到一声他以为是炸弹爆炸的巨响后冲到现场。“她一句话也没说。我只是不停地告诉她，她的宝宝没事。”Her 3-month-old, Cauê, was not fine. Neither was Joaquim, the couple’s 20-month-old toddler, his body launched with his father’s and left unrecognizable.她三个月大的婴儿卡埃并非没事。20个月大的孩子若阿金也一样，他和父亲一起被抛向空中，已经面目全非。Within days, all four would be dead. The baby was the last to go after his two grandmothers made the decision to pull him from life support, holding his tiny hands as he died.几天之内，四个人全部离世。婴儿是最后一个走的，他的两位祖母决定拔掉维持生命的仪器，握着他小小的手，看着他咽下最后一口气。马蒂尔德·拉莫斯·平托、迭戈·卡多索·德·奥利维拉夫妇，以及他们的两个儿子卡埃与若阿金。 Two years later, the woman who killed them, Mary Fong Lau, is expected to plead no contest on Friday to four felony counts of vehicular manslaughter. In exchange, Ms. Lau, 80, is likely to avoid prison or home detention.两年后，导致他们死亡的肇事者——80岁的玛丽·方·刘（音）——预计将于周五就四项过失杀人罪提出不抗辩。作为交换，刘女士很可能避免入狱或居家监禁。For many San Franciscans who still think about the tragedy, it raises a question: How should a driver be punished for killing four people?对于许多仍对这场悲剧念念不忘的旧金山人来说，这引发了一个问题：一名司机杀死四个人，应该受到怎样的惩罚？‘Forever imprisoned in the grief’“永远被悲伤囚禁”多洛雷斯公园，一张纪念这家人的长椅。 Ian C. Bates for The New York TimesIn the two years since the crash, the case has progressed through San Francisco Superior Court. The parties agree that Ms. Lau was not texting or talking on her phone before the crash. Her car did not malfunction. She was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and there was no obvious medical incident.事故发生两年后，此案在旧金山高等法院取得进展。双方一致同意，刘女士在撞车前没有发短信或打电话。她的车没有机械故障。她没有酒驾或吸毒，也没有明显的医疗突发事件。But she was driving as fast as 75 miles per hour, three times the speed limit, before she killed four people.但她在撞死四人之前，车速高达每小时75英里，是限速的三倍。Judge Bruce Chan said in a hearing last month that he intended to accept Ms. Lau’s plea of no contest to the manslaughter counts. In exchange, he would sentence her to two to three years of probation. Prison time would amount to “mere vengeance,” he said, and home detention and community service would not serve any purpose.法官布鲁斯·陈（音）在上个月的一次听证会上表示，他打算接受刘女士对过失杀人罪的不抗辩。作为交换，他将判处她两至三年缓刑。他称判处监禁只是“单纯的复仇”，而居家监禁和社区服务也毫无意义。The judge cited Ms. Lau’s age, her lack of a criminal record and her expressions of remorse shortly after the crash.法官援引了刘女士的年龄、无犯罪记录，以及事故发生后不久表达的悔意。“My feeling is that just as this family is forever imprisoned in the grief and the tragedy, Ms. Lau is also going to spend the rest of her days living with the knowledge of the harm that she caused to so many others,” Judge Chan said, according to a court transcript.“我的感觉是，正如这个家庭永远被悲伤和悲剧所囚禁，刘女士的余生也将时刻记得她对众多人造成的伤害，”布鲁斯·陈根据法庭笔录说道。玛丽·方·刘预计将于周五就四项车辆过失杀人罪提出不抗辩。作为交换，80岁的刘女士很可能免于入狱或居家监禁。Judge Chan, through a court spokeswoman, declined to comment further.他通过法院发言人拒绝了进一步置评。The victims’ relatives are outraged. Some are flying from as far as Portugal for a vigil at the crash site on Thursday and for the court hearing on Friday afternoon.受害者家属愤怒不已。有些人从葡萄牙等地远道飞来，将于周四在事故现场举行守夜仪式，并在周五下午出席法庭听证。They have collected more than 12,000 signatures on a petition condemning the sentence proposed by Judge Chan.他们已收集超过1.2万个签名，在一份谴责布鲁斯·陈拟议量刑的请愿书上签名。‘Did I kill that baby?’“我杀了那个婴儿吗？”Ms. Lau’s lawyer, Seth Morris, said that she does not know what happened the day of the crash except that she was driving to deliver soup to her brother in West Portal — and then her car was accelerating and she could not stop it.刘女士的律师塞斯·莫里斯表示，她除了知道自己在开车去西门给弟弟送汤之外，对那天发生的事一无所知——然后她的车开始加速，她刹不住。She is depressed and has said she wishes she could trade places with the family she killed, Mr. Morris said in an interview.莫里斯在采访中说，她现在很抑郁，并表示希望能与她杀死的那个家庭互换位置。“She’s living this life in her own mental prison at this point,” he said.“她现在活在自己的精神监狱里，”他说。这场导致一家四口不幸遇难的惨烈车祸令旧金山市民深感悲痛。Ms. Lau grew up in poverty in China, then immigrated to San Francisco for an arranged marriage and worked long hours as a seamstress in the city’s Chinatown, Mr. Morris said. She eventually managed to buy her own factory.莫里斯说，刘女士在中国的贫困环境中长大，后来通过包办婚姻移民到旧金山，在唐人街没日没夜地做裁缝活，最终自己开了一家工厂。Her husband died in a car crash when she was 25, Mr. Morris said. A death notice in The San Francisco Chronicle from Aug. 10, 1970, noted the passing of Jenson Lau, 26, the husband of Mary Lau, though it did not say how he died.莫里斯说，她25岁时丈夫在一场车祸中去世。《旧金山纪事报》1970年8月10日的讣告提到玛丽·刘的丈夫詹森·刘26岁去世，不过没有说明死因。They had three children, Jeffrey, James and Janice, whom Ms. Lau raised alone. Mr. Morris declined to make his client available, and the children did not respond to interview requests.他们有三个孩子，杰弗里、詹姆斯和詹妮丝，这些孩子都由刘女士独自抚养长大。莫里斯拒绝让他的当事人接受采访，孩子们也没有回应采访请求。Two years ago, immediately after the crash, Ms. Lau sat on the sidewalk with a bystander, Madeline Monge.两年前，事故刚发生后，刘女士与路人马德琳·蒙格一起坐在人行道边。It was the boom that drew Ms. Monge to the scene, so loud that she thought two trains might have collided in the nearby subway station. She ran there and, after seeing that the crash victims were being attended to, turned to the S.U.V., its airbags deployed and steam emanating.蒙格是被那声巨响吸引过来的，声音之大让她以为是附近地铁站里两列火车相撞了。她跑过去，看到事故受害者已接受救助后，便转向那辆SUV——安全气囊已弹出，车身正冒着热气。There, she found Ms. Lau bleeding and in shock and helped her leave the vehicle.她发现车中的刘女士正在流血并处于震惊状态，便帮她离开车辆。“It took her probably 30 to 45 minutes to really kind of get out that she had just messed up,” Ms. Monge said. “She hit the gas when she thought she was hitting the brake.”“大概过了30到45分钟，她才真正明白自己搞砸了，”蒙格说。“她以为自己在踩刹车，结果踩了油门。”Ms. Lau broke down when an ambulance arrived to take the baby away.当救护车来接走婴儿时，刘女士崩溃了。“She reached out her arms and was crying, ‘Did I kill that baby? Did I kill that baby?’” Ms. Monge recalled. “她伸出双臂哭喊：‘是我杀了那个婴儿吗？我杀了那个婴儿吗？’”蒙格回忆道。Extra layer of trauma额外的创伤So what would be a fair punishment for Ms. Lau? There is agreement among the family’s relatives, the district attorney and witnesses at the crash site that keeping an 80-year-old woman out of prison makes sense.那么，对刘女士来说，什么样的惩罚才算公平？受害者家属、区检察官和现场目击者都同意，让一位80岁的老妇人免于入狱是合理的。Still, in San Francisco, relatives described the proposed sentence as too light, and as an extra layer of trauma that made losing their loved ones feel even worse.尽管如此，在旧金山，家属们认为拟议的量刑太轻，并称这给他们带来了额外的创伤，使失去亲人的痛苦更加难以承受。The district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, has filed a motion asking Judge Chan to reconsider. While she does not think that Ms. Lau intended to hurt anybody, she believes Ms. Lau deserves punishment beyond probation.区检察官布鲁克·詹金斯已提交动议，要求陈法官重新考虑。虽然她不认为刘女士有意伤害任何人，但她认为刘女士应受到比缓刑更严厉的惩罚。2024年3月，当玛丽·方·刘驾车撞上这家人时，他们正站在公交车站等车，准备去旧金山动物园。 Ian C. Bates for The New York Times“We feel absolutely no sense of justice and that these lives were lost in vain,” Ms. Jenkins said.“我们完全感觉不到正义，觉得这些生命白白逝去了，”詹金斯说。The family of the victims is frustrated that Ms. Lau will not be required to plead guilty or issue a formal apology in court. The judge said he was waiving those actions because they could affect civil suits that the family has filed against her.受害者家属对于刘女士无需在法庭上认罪或正式道歉感到沮丧。法官表示，他豁免这些要求，是因为它们可能影响家属对她提起的民事诉讼。And under the terms suggested by Judge Chan in court last month, Ms. Lau would be eligible to regain her driver’s license after serving probation.根据陈法官上个月在法庭上提出的条款，刘女士在缓刑期满后将有资格重新获得驾照。The district attorney and extended family say that home detention and mandated community service would be appropriate — and that Ms. Lau’s driver’s license should be permanently revoked.区检察官和受害者的大家庭成员认为，居家监禁和强制社区服务才是合适的——而且刘女士的驾照应永久吊销。The family is skeptical of her remorse. They say that shortly after the crash Ms. Lau transferred several properties in California out of her trust and into the names of family members. After those transactions were called out in the civil suit, she transferred them back. Mr. Morris said she had been given bad advice by a previous lawyer.家属对她的悔意持怀疑态度。他们说，事故发生后不久，刘女士将加州几处房产从信托中转到家人名下。这些转移在民事诉讼中被指出后，她又转了回来。莫里斯称这是前任律师给的糟糕建议。He said in the last hearing that he had offered “a process of restorative justice where we could all talk and honor each other’s harms,” but that the plaintiff’s lawyer had rejected it. Neither the district attorney or the lawyer in the civil suit say they have received such an offer.他在上次听证会上表示，他曾提出“一种修复性司法程序，让我们能够交谈并尊重彼此受到的伤害”，但原告律师拒绝了。区检察官和民事诉讼律师均表示未收到此类提议。Denise Cardoso de Oliveira, Diego’s older sister, has flown from Florida to San Francisco to attend every hearing in the case, tallying nine so far. She said she has longed for some personal gesture from Ms. Lau.迭戈的姐姐丹妮丝·卡多索·德·奥利维拉从佛罗里达赶到旧金山，参加了迄今为止的九场听证。她说她一直渴望刘女士能做出一些个人姿态。“She has never spoken to us,” Ms. Cardoso de Oliveira said. “She has never made eye contact. I have never heard her say, ‘I’m sorry.’”“她从来没有跟我们说过话，”卡多索·德·奥利维拉说。“她从来没有正眼看过我们。我从来没有听她说过‘对不起’。”Georgia Gee对本文有研究贡献。Heather Knight是一名驻旧金山记者，领导时报对湾区和北加州的报道。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。