A California family is grieving after two brothers, ages 8 and 4, were killed by a man fleeing police in San Diego.
It happened Friday night when San Diego police officers tried to pull over a BMW at 32nd Street and Ocean View Boulevard. The driver, identified as 20-year-old Angel Velasquez Salgado, did not stop. He kept driving, sometimes at speeds of 100 mph, across city streets and two highways, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. He crashed with a Honda occupied by four people on the I-805 highway off-ramp at 43rd Street.
The BMW and the Honda rolled down an embankment and hit a tree. The tree fell on the Honda, which then caught fire, local NBC affiliate KNSD reported. Salgado ran away, but cops caught him and took him to jail. First responders did CPR on the boys, who were taken to the hospital where they died. The two other people in the car, the boys’ mother and aunt, also were injured and taken to the hospital.
Malikai, left, 8, and Mason Orozco-Romero, 4, died after a man fleeing cops hit their car in San Diego. The suspect, Angel Salgado, not pictured, was charged with murder. (GoFundMe)
The family identified the boys as Malikai, 8, and Mason Orozco-Romero, 4. Their mother is Victoria Romero, according to a GoFundMe page set up to pay for funeral expenses and medical bills.
“I’m just torn up,” Karla Villa, the boys’ grandmother, told KNSD. “My life is not the same and it will not be the same after this. Even though I have my daughter, I just feel like it’s not the same. I feel like in between, I’m alive and I’m dead.”
Villa said Romero remains in critical condition and could end up paralyzed and has yet to learn of her sons’ deaths. They had just left the hospital where Romero was receiving treatment for Lupus.
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“She’s been having a really tough life,” Villa told the TV station. “It’s been a battle. She’s been making it through. Her kids were that support for her to be strong with this illness and now that they’re gone, I don’t know how she’s going to get through all this.”
Despite life’s challenges — the boys also lost their father last year — they always “carried a beautiful smile” on their faces, their aunt wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“This tragedy isn’t fair,” she wrote.
San Diego County Jail and court records show Salgado prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges, including two counts of murder, hit and run causing death, evading a police officer and vehicular manslaughter. He also did not have a driver’s license, the Union-Tribune reported. He has pleaded not guilty.
The California Highway Patrol will lead the investigation, while the San Diego Police Department will conduct an internal investigation to determine whether officers followed agency policy.
“Most importantly, we want to remember the young victims of Friday night’s hit and run crash on I-805,” San Diego police said in a statement to Law&Crime. “Our hearts go out to the loved ones of the two children who were killed and the two women who were injured. We understand the public’s desire for answers and justice for these innocent victims.”
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