At least two men are currently on the run after allegedly stealing a laptop today from the Merced Branch Library, just north of the SF State campus.

After police were alerted at approximately 12:25 p.m., several units immediately searched the area for the suspects' vehicle, causing a collision between a police cruiser and a Toyota Rav4 on Holloway and 19th Avenues when the driver of the SUV failed to yield to the cruiser, said San Francisco Police Dept. Sgt. Randy Young of the Taraval police station.

The collision caused the Rav4 to flip over and both the driver and the officer, a member of SF State's Department of Public Safety, were taken to San Francisco General Hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

"There was just one lady in the car and she got out walking, which is a blessing," said Amanda Petersen, an SF State student who witnessed the accident. Petersen said the SUV rolled over twice before it landed on its roof.

"[The officer] accelerated a little bit too fast and clipped her on the back right side, damaging his front ride side, which caused her to flip," said Jesus Taizan, another witness and SF State student. "I believe if he had waited, there wouldn't have been an accident."

The suspects were last seen driving down 19th Avenue. So far, no other information about them has been released except that they were driving a silver car and appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties.

The Merced Branch Library is located at 155 Winston Dr. and was doubling as a polling place for election day.

"Two younger men picked up my computer [and] ran out," said Robert Martinez, 30, the inspector in charge of the polling location at the library. "I ran out to the street after them, one got into a car, the other remained in the neighborhood and must have been picked up."

Jerry Wong, who was working as a polling volunteer, said there were three men who had been walking suspiciously around the area before the incident. When Martinez got up to help a voter, the men grabbed the laptop and fled, said Wong, 16.

"They were kind of peeping through aisles, poking their heads out around corners," said George Tran, 27, a library employee.

A section of 19th Avenue was closed until 2 p.m. while the vehicles were towed and the accident cleaned up.

Additional reporting by staff writer Mani Dashtizadeh and staff producer Domingo Robledo.