San Diego Street Racing Death's Prompt Stiffer Restrictions
Date: Tuesday, August 27 @ 23:42:09 CDT
Topic: Street Racing in the news
This is a sad article about deaths in Street Racing
Friends erect memorial where pair died Sunday
By Joe Hughes
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 27, 2002
As friends of two teens killed Sunday in a Sorrento Valley street race built a roadside shrine for the victims yesterday, city officials pressed for new laws to combat a surge in the illegal sport that has claimed 12 lives this year.
City Attorney Casey Gwinn said yesterday he and law enforcement officials will propose the San Diego City Council soon enact an ordinance making it a crime to be a spectator or passenger in a car at a street race.
Gwinn also wants cars involved in street racing to be seized, and he wants new venuesd for legal racing. Racing is currently allowed only at sanctioned events in the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot.
"We need to send a message and stop these gatherings," Gwinn said. "Twelve dead bodies is too many."
Authorities said a 13th death may have been averted when a second passenger in the car that crashed Sunday got out of the vehicle moments before the race began, police said yesterday.
The crash happened about 3 a.m. when the driver of an Acura was racing two motorists in a light-industrial area of Sorrento Valley Road. He lost control of his car, which struck a tree in the median and erupted into flames, police said.
The names of the victims, a 19-year-old man who was driving and an 18-year-old woman passenger, were withheld by the county Medical Examiner's Office because their bodies were burned beyond recognition and dental records are needed to confirm their identities. It could be two days before a confirmation is made, officials said.
Word of the deaths, however, spread to friends and acquaintances who gathered at the crash site, placing candles, flowers and messages to the two young people who grew up and attended schools in the Skyline area.
"See you when I get there, Homie," said one of several messages directed at the driver of the Acura, identified as "Mikey." It was written on a partially burned traffic sign at the crash site.
One man who went to the shrine yesterday said he was a lifelong friend of the young woman killed in the crash.
"She was a mellow kid, not the kind who would play around; not rowdy, no drugs . . . very sweet," he said.
San Diego police say the crash may have been a spur-of-the moment event. There were no spectators and no one waving a flag to start the race, common at many illegal street races in the city.
Detectives say the drivers of the three cars involved, two Acuras and a Volkswagen GTI, met earlier in the evening in College Grove and began looking for areas to race.
They encountered police patrolling some of the racers' favorite locations in Kearny Mesa and Miramar. That's when they went to Sorrento Valley, detectives said.
Police say the fatal race began at a red light on Sorrento Valley Road at Sorrento Valley Boulevard.
"At the green light, the cars raced north, at speeds reaching 100 mph, we believe," said Sgt. Mike Healey.
In the 11700 block, near an area popular with drag racers, the driver of one Acura lost control of his car, which drifted into the center turn lane before striking a pine tree. The impact spun the car and it hit a second tree, splitting the car in two and bursting into flames.
Healey said the drivers of the other two vehicles stopped after the crash and waited for police.
Healey said skid marks indicate the Acura was going 87 mph just before it hit the first tree.
Healey expressed frustration at trying to police the street racing scene locally.
"It has become a growing underground culture," Healey said. "We have established a special dragnet unit and we have pulled in officers from other areas to deal with it."
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