BY BRIAN ROKOS
The witnesses were certain, the CHP adamant. Daniel Carrillo, known by enraged neighbors to zoom his 1994 Ford Ranger up and down his residential Hemet street, was at it again. On May 30, the witnesses said, Carrillo, gunning his engine, raced at least 50 mph along Stetson Avenue, weaving in and out of traffic before carelessly and recklessly running a red light and plowing into eight Hemet High classmates in a crosswalk. The public, on Facebook postings, blogs and in phone calls to the district attorney and the CHP, demanded the arrest of Carrillo, 18, who had obtained his driver’s license only 15 days earlier. The furor would turn out to be premature. Even the California Highway Patrol, which investigated the collision, acknowledged that it got caught up in the moment, citing pressure from the news media and public to quickly come up with answers. The CHP had made a limited in- spection of Carillo’s brakes and used a surveillance camera that recorded only a few frames per second to determine his speed. Yet, even though major traffic investigations can take months, a CHP officer less than a week after the crash announced at a news conference that Carrillo had been driving 50 mph in a 25-mph zone, cast doubt on Carrillo’s assertion that his brakes had failed and said the filing of serious criminal charges was imminent. But a new picture of the collision — one that a CHP commander is now calling an accident — emerged after facts were separated from emotion. It’s when the accident investigators, who use advanced math and physics and a little bit of art, went to work in earnest. Gregory Peck, the commander of the CHP’s San Gorgonio station, said Tuesday, Oct. 16, that “catastrophic brake failure” was the main cause of the tragedy that left one girl with permanent brain damage. Moreover, Carrillo was driving, at most, 35 mph past the school, said Officer Darren Meyer, a CHP spokesman. Carrillo had managed to slow his pickup to about 15 mph when he struck the pedestrians, Peck said. That engine gunning? That could have been the engine roaring when Carrillo frantically changed gears in an attempt to stop the vehicle , Peck said. The CHP, when it submitted its initial report to the Riverside County district attorney’s office, recommended that Carrillo should be charged with a misdemeanor. District attorney spokesman John Hall said Tuesday that the office’s review of that report led it to ask whether more evidence could be found with additional examination of the vehicle and questioning of witnesses. After the CHP’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team tore apart the master cylinder and completed its probe of the truck parts, both the CHP and DA’s office agreed that Carrillo should not be charged, Peck said. The district attorney announced Monday that Carrillo will only be cited for failing to properly maintain his brakes. “The district attorney brought up some questions, we re-investigated the concerns, and by doing so, we uncovered more evidence that made the cause of the collision more gray than we originally thought,” Meyer said. Carrillo could not be reached for comment. A message was left for him at his new school, Advanced Path Academics on the grounds of Alessandro High. Had Carrillo been charged with a misdemeanor, it would not have been a rarity for an injury crash. For instance, Juan Zacarias Tzun, who is accused of turning his pickup in front of motorcyclist Dominic Durden in a fatal crash in Moreno Valley this year, is facing a misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence. Follow Brian Rokos on Twitter: @Brian_Rokos. And watch for his posts on the Crime Blotter blog: blog. pe.com/ crime-blotter/