Pedestrian Killed in DUI Street Racing Incident
Motorist, Guadalupe Reyes-Inzunza is sentenced for four years. Prosecutors state the reasoning for this is due to a combination of street racing and alcohol that killed a pedestrian in August 2013.
31 year old, Guadalupe was sentenced by Judge, Steven M. Katz. Guadalupe took the plea deal, he also pleaded no contest to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. However, the two charges of DUI causing bodily injury were dismissed.
Guadalupe’s attorney, Thomas Johnston stated that there were some mitigating circumstances in the case. He also said that even though Guadalupe was intoxicated when the crash happened, the person he struck had been jaywalking at the time.
Johnston’s statement:
The first thing my client saw was a body on his windshield.
Johnston stands by his client and says that Guadalupe did the right thing by returning to the scene of the crash to find out what happened. The vehicle that Guadalupe was passing at the time that he hit, 56 year old, Timothy Jerome Murphy, had continued on its way and has yet to be located. Johnston even speculated that it was possible the other vehicle had hit Timothy before Guadalupe did.
Johnston also denied that Guadalupe was actually street racing. He claimed that his client was traveling around 45 mph and was just passing the other vehicle when he hit Timothy.
The Prosecutor, Jim Simson did say that that was not the case. Other motorists did report that Guadalupe’s 2002 BMW 525i and the second vehicle were traveling and extremely high speeds. He also stated that Timothy was technically not jaywalking at the time of the accident because there were no crosswalks between the tow intersections. The deal was offered to Guadalupe because he and some others believed that if they had gone to a trial that would have been his sentencing.
Simson stated:
In a situation like this where a life is taken we want to take that person off the street for as long as possible.
According to the California Highway Patrol, Guadalupe and the other motorist was driving so fast that Timothy had no chance of getting out of the road on time. Timothy was struck and killed at the intersection of Oswell and Niles streets. Guadalupe also has a previous drunken driving conviction stemming from a 2006 arrest. In that paticular accident, he pleaded guilty to the DUI and driving without a license.
Anyone with information about the other vehicle believed to be racing in this incident is asked to call the local CHP at 864-4444.
Daniel A. Gibalevich
