near the wharves] was in full stampede up Mission Street, charging everyone and everything in their path. A lot of them were running along the sidewalks of Mission Street between Front and First Streets when a big warehouse toppled out onto the thoroughfare and crushed most of them clean through the pavement and into the basement, killing and burying most of them outright."

Officer Walsh and several other men shot more than 60 additional steers who were rampaging up Mission Street. A few made it as far as the Palace Hotel, and one terrified steer careened through Chinatown, where it "caused terror to the Chinese, who considered this a bad omen."