In an Dec. 10, 2025 exclusive, The Voice of San Francisco revealed documents showing that the Dec. 31, 2020 crash that killed 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt and 27-year-old Hanako Abe in San Francisco was one of several incidents over six months that should have prompted agents and supervisors of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), Division of Adult Parole Operations (DAPO), and San Francisco Parole Unit 1 to issue a parole hold on parolee Troy McAlister. Three months after that report, Phoong Law Corporation, led by attorneys Anh Phoong and Diana Thomas, has filed a government claim against the State of California on behalf of the Abe family.
The claim (a required first step before suing a public entity) alleges CDCR, Parole Agent Roberto Vasquez, Assistant Supervising Parole Agent Rhoderick Reyes, and Supervising Parole Agent Tom Porter were negligent in failing to supervise McAlister during what was his third parole term. Prior to his 2020 release by then District Attorney Chesa Boudin from County Jail on a 2015 robbery charge, McAlister had committed more 73 felonies and 34 misdemeanors in San Francisco alone. The Abe family’s attorneys say the deaths of the two women — strangers in a crosswalk now indelibly linked — was foreseeable and entirely preventable.
“State Parole received repeated warnings that McAlister was committing violent crimes while out on parole. Parole agents had every tool to protect the public but chose not to act.”
Abe family attorney Anh Phoong
“This tragedy was not random,” said Phoong, lead attorney on the case. “State Parole received repeated warnings that McAlister was committing violent crimes while out on parole. Parole agents had every tool to protect the public but chose not to act. Hanako was a beloved daughter, sister and friend with a promising future. Her family deserves justice and will fight for accountability — and change — so that no one else has to endure this pain.”
A trail of culpability
In April 2020, following Governor Newsom’s Covid-related State of Emergency proclamation, parole agents received a memo instructing them to avoid sending parolees to jail or prison except when there was “an imminent threat to public safety or when state statutes require detaining them.” The memo also stated that agents “should not conduct routine inspections of parolees’ living quarters or test them for drugs.”
In a May 11, 2020 email sent by Parole Agent III(A) Tom Porter of San Francisco Parole Unit 1 to his agents, additional orders included limiting field and home visits only to “recent releases and parolees who could not be contacted,” as well as refusing to assist outside law enforcement agencies — a duty distinctly outlined in the job description of parole officers. Porter also instructed his agents that they “must not search for violations.” In a copy of the email obtained by The Voice, one of the people addressed is Troy McAlister’s parole agent, Roberto Vasquez.
In a previous memo, dated May 8, from DAPO Director Jeffrey Green and addressed to all Division of Adult Parole Operations Staff, however, there were exceptions for returning parolees to jail or prison, including “serious violations where there is a clear, imminent, and articulable risk to public safety” as well as “mandatory violations, to include violations of Penal Code 3010.10,” which defines serious felonies that are grounds for revoking parole including grand theft, carjacking, any felony in which the defendant uses a firearm, and first-degree burglary (entering the home of another person with the intent to commit theft).
Whistleblowers told The Voice that police notified Vasquez after four of the five arrests, and each time Vasquez declined to initiate proceedings to hold McAlister in jail or send him back to prison.
Any of the five incidents leading up to the killings proved McAlister to be a “clear, imminent, and articulable risk to public safety” and should have been enough for agents to issue a parole hold. For example, on June 28, 2020, at 11:04 p.m., San Francisco police officers responded to the Ingleside District regarding a residential burglary in progress. They arrested McAlister hiding in the woman’s home for possession of burglary tools, giving a false name to a peace officer, and a parole violation. It also could have qualified as first-degree burglary. Still, CDCR refused to take any responsibility.
“Our parole office followed all procedures after these incidents, including conducting investigations and making appropriate referrals for the individual,” the agency said in a statement after McAlister killed Abe and Platt. But CDCR whistleblowers (who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation) told The Voice that police notified Vasquez after four of the five arrests, and each time Vasquez declined to initiate proceedings to hold McAlister in jail or send him back to prison. While each subsequent arrest revealed a career criminal on a dangerous collision course, it was the sixth arrest, just two days before Abe and Platt were killed, that patently violated Penal Code section 3010.10.
On Dec. 29, 2020, Daly City Police contacted Parole Agent Vasquez asking for help in locating and arresting McAlister for felony carjacking and brandishing a high-capacity extended-magazine firearm to a date at a fast-food restaurant. Vasquez had access to McAlister’s GPS coordinates, known residences of record, and ankle monitor data, but he did not assist police. Without help from parole, Daly City Police could not locate McAlister to take him into custody.
Two days later, while high on drugs and fleeing an armed robbery, McAlister struck and killed Platt and Abe.