The Most Dangerous Street Racing Stunts – Valentina D’Alessandro was at a party with several girlfriends in 2013 when one of them fell ill. They accepted a young man’s offer to drive the girls home in his red Mustang.
In the business district of Wilmington, at the intersection of two boulevards, the car stopped next to the Mustang.
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Minutes later, Valentina, 16, was dead, her body stuck in the passenger side window after the crash. Police found his high school ID card at the scene.
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He was one of at least 179 people who have died in Los Angeles County since 2000 in crashes involving suspected street racing, according to a Los Angeles Times review of coroner’s reports, police reports and accounts of media from 2000 to 2017.
Southern California has long been the center of high-speed car culture. Wild police programs dominate television news coverage. The movie “Fast & Furious”, which many police officers accused of rigging street racing, was set in Los Angeles.
Police say street racing incidents are on the rise, fueled by popular culture and the use of social media to attract competitors and evade the authorities. In what racers call “taking money,” participants use their cars to block streets or intersections to stage races.
In recent years, auto teams from surrounding areas, including Orange County and the Inland Empire, have begun traveling to Los Angeles to compete with local racing crews, increasing the number of dangerous drivers in the state, researchers said. they said.
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“We have places. We have many flat streets. We have industrial parks. And the Hollywood connection,” said Chief Chris O’Quinn, who heads the California Highway Patrol’s Southern Division in LA County. “This is where we need to be.”
The deadliest year on record was 2007, with 18 fatal accidents. After a period with few reported deaths, the number has increased in recent years, with 15 fatalities in 2015, which 11 in 2016 and 12 deaths in 2017, the Times analysis shows.
The dead were male and very young: More than half were 21 years old or younger, including two children, ages 4 and 8, killed along with their mother . Less than half of the victims – 47% – were behind the wheel. The rest were speeders, onlookers or people just walking on the side of the road or driving home.
The deaths occurred throughout Los Angeles County, but other areas — Long Beach, Santa Clarita, industrial areas southeast of the city and a wide swath across South LA and the San Fernando Valley — have been trouble spots. .
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One of the few law enforcement agencies that tracks street racing incidents is the CHP, and has been doing so since 2016. From July 2016 to July 2017, the CHP reported incidents about 700 races in L.A. County. Those races involved about 17,000 vehicles and 22,000 people, according to CHP data. The data does not include risks.
The Times analyzed street racing deaths since 2000. Their figure of 179 fatalities is a conservative estimate, because few law enforcement agencies keep track of street racing fatalities and it is difficult to separate the events themselves.
Officials say many races that lead to murder, like the accident that killed Valentina, are spontaneous.
When he took Valentina to a friend’s house that day, he recalled, “she looked amazingly beautiful. I can’t even describe the love I felt at that time.” Her daughter wore combat boots and mismatched socks, her brown hair tucked under a beanie.
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Trujillo D’Alessandro, 53, said: “Maybe something inside me told me that I would never see him again.
Lili Trujillo D’Alessandro shows a picture of her daughter, Valentina D’Alessandro, at the intersection in Wilmington where a 16-year-old was killed in a suspected street race four years ago. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
According to the coroner’s report, the two vehicles were traveling down the road at an “unsafe speed” when the Mustang collided with the third vehicle.
Less than a month later, Trujillo D’Alessandro attended an anti-drug rally at his daughter’s high school, carrying a picture of a smiling Valentina. Soon after, he founded the advocacy group “Street Racing Kills.”
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Trujillo D’Alessandro said: “I want children to see real things and understand them. I want them to see that this is possible.
Eric Siguenza, 26, and Wilson Thomas Wong, 50, were killed in February 2015 at Chatsworth’s Canoga Speedway while watching a street race with more than 60 others.
Nine months later, three people, including a 15-year-old child, were killed in Commerce after a Dodge doing donuts on the street collided with a Ford, many onlookers said. Sheriff’s deputies said more than 100 vehicles may have been in the area at the time.
Those deaths occurred during the confiscation. The potential for harm, officials said, is high, fueled by drugs, money and other criminal activity.
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CHP officers are investigating a 2016 commercial fire accident that left three people dead. Street racing was believed to be a factor, and a man is awaiting trial on manslaughter charges in connection with the crash. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
“When you look at pickup, you’ve got a lot of people, out of their cars, in a small space, and you’ve got a 3,000-pound machine that’s very controlling,” he said. Sgt. Jesse Garcia, one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s top street racing investigators. “You have the potential for a much higher number of casualties if that vehicle loses control.”
Panhandlers have become more aggressive toward police in recent years, according to O’Quinn, the CHP chief. At one point the officers were able to disperse the racers with their headlights. Now, others in the car park are fighting back, either blocking the way for friends to flee or sometimes confronting officers.
A fire engine and ambulance responding to a medical emergency near the city last year met with capture and were “surrounded by a large group of hundreds of people, maybe more,” said Peter Sanders. , a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman. Crews called 911 after other passengers jumped into the emergency vehicle, Sanders said.
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No one was injured, but another ambulance had to be dispatched to help the first emergency caller, who was having difficulty breathing.
“That action put a person’s life in danger,” said Capt. Al Lopez, of the LAPD’s Central Traffic Bureau, said investigators are still looking for suspects in the incident.
The police say that the situation of taking goods has intensified in recent years, fueled by youths who are hungry for attention on social media. Events can be arranged within hours, and venues can be changed instantly.
Instagram “likes” on viral videos of stunts — people doing donuts or skating — are the new street name, Garcia said. About $20,000 is betting on illegal drag racing.
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Tracking the number of street races is difficult. Street racing is not listed as a potential cause on government forms that report traffic collisions, so many agencies do not keep detailed records. Some disagree on how to define a street race or sprint competition. The definition of the penal code is broad and includes a race against a “time device or clock.”
The image of two cars going down the tarmac is often associated with street racing, but some agencies, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, also include single-car crashes that involve racing against time.
After the 2016 drop in traffic, the LAPD and CHP formed a task force to address the problem of illegal racing. In the past three years, seven people have died in the town of about 13,000 people crossing 5 and 710 roads.
Three of the dead were involved in the 2016 fiery crash. The suspect, who was speeding 100 mph, lost control of his Dodge Charger on the 5 Freeway and crashed into a UPS truck, which went airborne, fell into a median and collided with and two other cars before it exploded. Two passengers in one of the vehicles – Brian Lewandowski, 18, and Michelle Littlefield, 19 – were killed, along with the driver of the UPS truck, Scott Treadway, 52. Four others were injured.
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“Every day, every step I took with my wife, was about my daughter,” said Willy Littlefield, Michelle’s father. “When we wake up, we have to remind ourselves that our daughter is not here, that this is the new reality.”
Dealio Lockhart, 37, is charged with three counts of murder in connection with the incident. He is still awaiting trial. The second driver is still missing.
Several law enforcement agencies have assigned officers to the task force. But some organizations say they don’t have staff. The CHP has assigned two full-time detectives, O’Quinn said.
At least a dozen officers at LAPD Central Office are investigating street racing, focusing on organized gatherings because it’s almost impossible to stop spontaneous races. Efforts to set up a similar facility in the Valley, another hot spot for racing, were abandoned due to a lack of manpower, a street racing researcher said.
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Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander, who