The Brief

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson

Ivan Dimov was convicted of reckless driving in 2013, after fleeing police in Washington state while his passenger allegedly dumped heroin out the window. Before that, he got six DUIs in California over a six-year period. None of that would keep him off the road.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles reissued him a driver’s license in 2017. The next year, on Christmas Eve, he drove drunk again, running stop signs and a traffic light in midtown Sacramento, going more than 80 mph, court records show. He T-boned another car, killing a 28-year-old man who was going home to feed the cat before heading to his mom’s for the holiday.

Kostas Linardos had 17 tickets — including for speeding, reckless driving and street racing — and had been in four collisions. Then, in November 2022, he gunned his Ram 2500 truck as he entered a Placer County highway and slammed into the back of a disabled sedan, killing a toddler, court records show. He’s now facing felony manslaughter charges.

In December of last year, while that case was open, the DMV renewed his driver’s license.

Ervin Wyatt’s history behind the wheel spreads across two pages of a recent court filing: Fleeing police. Fleeing police again. Running a red light. Causing a traffic collision. Driving without a license, four times. A dozen speeding tickets.

Yet the DMV issued him a license in 2019. Wyatt promptly got three more speeding tickets, court records show. Prosecutors say he was speeding again in 2023 when he lost control and crashed into oncoming traffic, killing three women. He’s now facing murder charges in Stanislaus County.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles routinely allows drivers like these — with horrifying histories of dangerous driving, including DUIs, crashes and numerous tickets — to continue to operate on our roadways, a CalMatters investigation has found. Too often they go on to kill. Many keep driving even after they kill. Some go on to kill again.

With state lawmakers grappling with how to address the death toll on our roads, CalMatters wanted to understand how California handles dangerous drivers. We first asked the district attorneys for all 58 counties to provide us with a list of their vehicular manslaughter cases from 2019 through early last year. Every county but Santa Cruz provided the information.

Because California has no centralized court system and records aren’t online, we then traveled to courthouses up and down the state to read through tens of thousands of pages of files. Once we had defendants’ names and other information, we were able to get DMV driver reports for more than 2,600 of the defendants, providing details on their recent collisions, citations and license status.

The court records and driving histories reveal a state so concerned with people having access to motor vehicles for work and life that it allows deadly drivers to share our roads despite the cost. Officials may call driving a privilege, but they treat it as a right — often failing to take drivers’ licenses even after they kill someone on the road.

We found nearly 40% of the drivers charged with vehicular manslaughter since 2019 have a valid license.

That includes a driver with two separate convictions for vehicular manslaughter, for crashes that killed a 16-year-old girl in 2009 and a 25-year-old woman in 2020. In July of last year, the DMV issued him a driver’s license.

The agency gave licenses to nearly 150 people less than a year after they allegedly killed someone on the road, we found. And while the agency has since suspended some of those, often after a conviction, the majority remain valid. In Santa Clara County, a man prosecutors charged with manslaughter got his current license just a month and a half after the collision that killed a mother of three young children.

And many drivers accused of causing roadway deaths don’t appear to have stopped driving recklessly. Records show that nearly 400 got a ticket or were in another crash — or both — after their deadly collisions.

A commercial driver drove his semi truck on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, killing a motorcyclist in Kern County in 2021. Less than a year later, he still had a valid license when he barreled his semi into slow-moving traffic, hitting four vehicles and killing a woman in Fresno County, records show. Another man, sentenced to nine years in prison for killing two women while driving drunk, got his privileges restored by the DMV after being paroled, only to drive high on meth in Riverside and weave head-on into another car, killing a woman.

“It is somewhat shocking to see how much you can get away with and still be a licensed driver in the state of California,” Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said. “I don’t think anyone fully understands what you need to do behind the wheel to lose your driving privilege.”

Almost as interesting as the information in the drivers’ DMV records is what’s not there.

Hundreds of drivers’ DMV records simply don’t list convictions for manslaughter or another crime related to a fatal crash, we found. The apparent error means some drivers who should have their driving privileges suspended instead show up in DMV records as having a valid license.

The cases we reviewed cut across demographics and geography. Defendants include farmworkers and a farm owner. They include off-duty police officers and people with lengthy rap sheets, drivers who killed in a fit of rage and others whose recklessness took the lives of those they loved most — high school sweethearts, siblings, children. The tragedies span this vast state. From twisty two-lane mountain roads near the Oregon border to the dusty scrubland touching Mexico. From the crowded streets of San Francisco to the highways of the Inland Empire. From Gold Country, to timber country, to Silicon Valley, to the almond capital of the world. So much death. More people than are killed by guns.

Dangerous drivers are able to stay on the roads for many reasons. The state system that targets motorists who rack up tickets is designed to catch clusters of reckless behavior, not long-term patterns. And while there are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver’s license for certain crimes, like DUIs, there is no such requirement for many vehicular manslaughter convictions.

It’s often up to the DMV whether to act. Routinely it doesn’t.

The DMV declined to make its director, Steve Gordon — who has been in charge since Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him in 2019 — available for an interview to discuss our findings.

Chris Orrock, a DMV spokesperson, said the agency follows the law when issuing licenses. “We use our authority as mandated and as necessary,” he said.

Even when the DMV does take away motorists’ driving privileges, state officials, law enforcement and the courts are often unable or unwilling to keep them off the road. We found cases where drivers racked up numerous tickets while driving on a suspended license and faced little more than fines before eventually causing a fatal crash, even though authorities could have sent them to jail.

Taking away someone’s driving privilege is no small decision. It can consign a family to poverty, affecting job prospects, child care and medical decisions.

Still, the stakes couldn’t be higher. More than 20,000 people died on the roads of California from 2019 to early 2024.

Kowana Strong thinks part of the problem is that lawmakers and regulators are too quick to treat fatal crashes as an unfortunate fact of life, as opposed to something they can address.

Her son Melvin Strong III — who went by his middle name, Kwaun — was finishing college and planning to start a master’s program in kinesiology when he was killed by Dimov, the driver with six prior DUI convictions. Kwaun was a bright and innocent young man, she said, just starting his life.

“It’s just another accident as far as they’re concerned,” Kowana Strong said.

Holes in the DMV’s point system

Young people think they’re invincible. It’s the old who know how unfair life is, Jerrod Tejeda said.

His daughter Cassi Tejeda was just 22. She was months from graduating from Chico State with a bachelor’s degree in history and a plan to be a teacher. Outgoing and athletic, she wanted to travel, see the world and make her own life.

She had a girlfriend who was visiting. Courtney Kendall was 24 and a student at Louisiana State University.

On a Sunday afternoon in January 2022, a Volvo SUV topping speeds of 75 mph ran a red light and smashed into their Jeep, court records show. The collision killed them both.

“The most difficult part besides the incident is every day that goes by you're always wondering what if. What would they be doing today?” Jerrod Tejeda said. “Would they be married? Would they have developed into the career that they chose? Where would she be living?”

Tanya Kendall lamented not being there to protect her daughter, hold her hand or say goodbye.

“Instead, I was left with the unbearable task of choosing what outfit she would be buried in. Buried, Your Honor. Not the gown she would wear to her graduation from LSU — the one she will never attend,” the mother wrote in a letter to a Butte County judge, adding that she and her husband stood in their daughter’s place, accepting her diploma.

Such pain was preventable.

Jerrod Tejeda holds a framed photo of his daughter Cassi Tejeda, at his home in Visalia on March 6, 2025. Cassi was killed by a drunk driver with two prior DUIs in January of 2022.

(

Larry Valenzuela

/

CalMatters/CatchLight Local

)

A scrapbook of photographs of Cassi Tejeda on the table of Jerrod Tejeda’s home in Visalia on March 6, 2025.

(

Larry Valenzuela

/

CalMatters/CatchLight Local

)

Cassi was killed by a drunk driver with two prior DUIs in January of 2022.

(

Larry Valenzuela

/

CalMatters/CatchLight Local

)

The driver of the Volvo, Matthew Moen, had a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit, according to court filings. And it wasn’t his first time drinking and driving. Moen was caught driving drunk in Oregon in 2016. He never completed the requirements of a diversion program and had an outstanding warrant at the time of the fatal crash, the Butte County district attorney’s office said. In January 2020, he was convicted of DUI in Nevada County for driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, given a couple weeks in jail and put on probation for three years.

His license was valid at the time of the fatal 2022 crash, records show.

Across the country, states grapple with how to effectively spot and punish drivers who could be a danger on the road. Often they rely on a basic point system, with drivers accruing points for various types of traffic violations and thresholds for when the state will take away a motorist’s driving privileges. But like many, California has such high limits that drivers with a pattern of reckless behavior can avoid punishment.

The state suspends a driver’s license for accumulating four points in a year, six points in two years or eight points in three years. What does it take to get that many points? Using a cellphone while driving is zero points. A speeding ticket is a point. Vehicular manslaughter is two points.

Between March 2017 and March 2022, Trevor Cook received two citations for running red lights, got two speeding tickets and was deemed responsible for two collisions, including one in which someone was injured, court records show. (A third red-light ticket was dismissed.) At-fault collisions add a point to a driver’s license, according to the DMV. But the incidents were spaced out enough that none resulted in a suspension.

(

Photos by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

)

So Cook had a valid license on April 14, 2022, just a month after his last speeding ticket, when he blew through a Yolo County stop sign at more than 100 mph.

At that exact moment, Prajal Bista passed through the intersection, on his way to work after dinner and a movie with his wife, according to details of the crash that prosecutors included in court filings. Bista was driving the speed limit and on track to make it to work 30 minutes early.

The force of the collision nearly split Bista’s Honda Civic in half. Investigators determined Bista had been wearing his seat belt, but the crash tore it apart. They found his body 75 feet from the intersection.

On March 28, 2024, Cook pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter.

Just a month later, on April 30, the DMV issued Cook his current driver’s license, agency records show. Less than two weeks after that, he got a ticket for disobeying a traffic signal.

Melinda Aiello, chief deputy district attorney in Yolo County, said her office didn’t know anything about the new license or the red-light ticket until contacted by CalMatters. What’s more, the manslaughter conviction — like hundreds of others we found — isn’t listed on Cook’s driving record.

Cook’s license was still listed as valid in California DMV records as of early 2025. But for now, he’s off the roadways: Last summer, Cook started serving time in state prison.

“It’s stunning to me that eight months later his license is still showing as valid and the conviction for killing someone while driving is not reflected in his driving record,” Aiello said. “You killed somebody. I’d think there might be some license implications.”

Orrock, the DMV spokesperson, said he couldn’t speak directly to why so many convictions are missing. But, he said, “we acknowledge that the process and coordination between the judicial system and the DMV must continually evolve to address any gaps that have been identified. And we’re looking into that.”

Kill someone, get your license back

There are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver’s license for various convictions. A first DUI conviction, for example, is a 6-to-10-month suspension. Felony vehicular manslaughter is a three-year loss of driving privileges. The agency isn’t necessarily required to give a license back if its driver safety branch deems a motorist too dangerous to drive, agency officials said.

But CalMatters found the agency regularly gives drivers their licenses back as soon as the legally required period ends. And once crashes, tickets and suspensions fall off a driver’s record after a few years, it’s often as if the motorist’s record is wiped clean. So even if the driver gets in trouble again, the agency often treats any future crashes and traffic violations as isolated incidents, not as part of a longer pattern of reckless driving.

Perhaps that’s why Joshua Daugherty is licensed to drive in California.

In July 2020, Daugherty drifted onto the highway shoulder while driving near Mammoth Lakes, overcorrected to the left and lost control, court filings show. His Toyota Tacoma cut across the lane into oncoming traffic, where an SUV broadsided it. Daugherty’s girlfriend, 25-year-old Krystal Kazmark, died. Police noted that Daugherty’s eyes were red and watery and his speech was slurred when they arrived. He told officers that he’d smoked “a couple of bowls” of marijuana earlier in the day, according to records filed in court.

Kazmark’s mother was devastated. Like other victim relatives we spoke to for this story, Mary Kazmark tried as best she could to summarize a life into a few words — an impossible task. Her daughter liked to sing, travel, cook, draw, snow-ski, water-ski, wakeboard, hike, read, entertain friends and plan parties. She was a responsible kid, her mother said, always the designated driver with her friends. She oversaw guest reservations at one of the Mammoth Lakes lodges.

Mary Kazmark said she tracked down Daugherty on the phone a few days after the crash.

“He just said, ‘I can’t believe this happened again.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’”

She eventually learned it wasn’t the first time Daugherty’s driving had killed.

In August 2009, in a strikingly similar incident, Daugherty was speeding along a Riverside County highway when his Ford Expedition drifted onto the shoulder. Witnesses told police he veered back to the left, lost control, hit a dirt embankment and went airborne, the SUV flipping onto its roof. A 16-year-old girl riding in the back died. Daugherty was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. He was sentenced to 180 days in custody and three years’ probation, according to a summary of the case filed in court.

Because of the earlier manslaughter conviction, police recommended he be charged with murder for the death of Krystal Kazmark. But the Mono County district attorney’s office charged him with a mere misdemeanor.

Josh Daugherty and Krystal Kazmark.

(

(Photo courtesy of Mary Kazmark)

)

Felony charges require a prosecutor to prove “gross negligence.” A prosecutor in another county described the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor this way: A felony is one in which you tell the average person the facts and they say, “Wow, that’s really dangerous.” A misdemeanor is one which they say, “That’s dumb but I’ve probably done it.”

The Mono County district attorney’s office refused to comment on the case, because the prosecutor and the elected DA at the time have both since retired. The office did provide a prepared statement explaining the charging decision. “It was determined that there was not a substantial likelihood of conviction at trial,” it said.

Daugherty pleaded guilty and was convicted in January 2023. He was sentenced to a year in jail. The DMV suspended his driving privileges after the fatal 2020 crash, a DMV report shows. But losing his license wasn’t enough to keep Daugherty off the road, records show.

Two months after his conviction for killing Kazmark, before he reported to jail, police caught him driving on a suspended license.

Still, the DMV reissued Daugherty a license in July 2024.

To recap: That’s two convictions for two dead young women, plus a conviction for driving on a suspended license, and the California DMV says Daugherty can still share the road with you.

“It’s so sad. You make a mistake and then you don’t learn from it and then you cause another person to lose their life,” Mary Kazmark said. “It’s unbelievable that he can continue to drive.”

Orrock said the DMV couldn’t comment on individual drivers.

When law enforcement reports a fatal crash, the agency’s driver safety branch flags all drivers who might be at fault. It then looks into the collision and decides whether the agency should suspend those motorists’ driving privileges. If the driver contests the action, there’s a hearing that could include witness testimony. Suspensions are open-ended. Drivers need to ask for their license back, and agency personnel decide whether the suspension should end or continue. These discretionary suspensions typically last for about a year.

And while officials said the DMV can continue a suspension if they think a driver poses a danger, Orrock said they need to give drivers an opportunity to get their license back. He said there’s no process in the state “to permanently revoke a license.”

Get your license back, get in trouble again

Roughly 400 drivers accused of causing a fatal crash since 2019 received a ticket, got in another collision or did both after the date they allegedly killed someone on the road. (The reports don’t show whether the drivers were found at fault, only that they were involved in an accident.) That’s about 15% of the drivers for whom we could get DMV reports.

Drivers like William Beasley.

From 2011 to 2016, Beasley collected five speeding tickets and a citation for running a red light in Sacramento County, court records show. Then around 9 a.m. on a sunny Tuesday in October 2019, he killed a man.

William and Deborah Hester were crossing the street to go to a dentist appointment at a veterans facility when Beasley’s silver pickup sped toward them. They thought they would make it across. But the truck didn’t stop. At the last minute, William Hester shoved his wife out of the way. She heard the truck smash into her husband’s body and screamed, according to court records.

Beasley still didn’t stop. He fled the area and tried to hide his truck. Investigators used nearby cameras and license plate readers to track him down days later. Beasley admitted to being in a collision.

He later pleaded no contest in Sacramento to hit-and-run and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. A probation report in the case revealed Beasley was nearly blind in his left eye.

From left, William Hester and Loriann Hester Page.

(

Photo courtesy of Loriann Hester Page

)

“Mr. Hester is with me every moment of my life,” Beasley said in an interview. “I took away a father, a grandfather, a husband, and they consider me a murderer. That’s not who I am.”

“My accident with Mr. Hester was just that, an accident. Nothing more,” he said, adding that he worked as a courier for years and sometimes got speeding tickets because he was rushing.

In May 2020, the DMV took away his driving privileges.

In November 2022, Beasley got his license back — “because I could and I needed to,” he said, adding that people deserve second chances, particularly for accidents.

Almost immediately — less than three weeks after getting his license — he was in another collision, his DMV report shows. In early 2024, he got in yet another. His license was suspended when his car insurance was canceled, records show.

“It makes no sense to me that they would give him a license and give him the opportunity to hurt someone else,” said Loriann Hester Page, William Hester’s daughter.

Her father’s death broke the family, she said. He drove a tank in the Army, played guitar in a band, liked to ride horses.

“My dad was such a wonderful, kind man,” she said. “He would always walk in a room and wanted to make everyone smile.”

Beasley said he doesn’t plan to drive again.

"I am 75 years old,” he said. “I am blind in one eye. I have had a situation where a man was killed, he lost his life. I am not going to repeat that situation at all.”

Still on the road, license never suspended

The DMV does have the ability to act quickly. In some cases, it suspended a driver’s license shortly after a fatal crash. However, we found numerous cases in which the DMV did nothing for months or years, often not until a criminal conviction.

In July 2021, truck driver Baljit Singh drove his semi on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, killing a motorcyclist in Kern County, court records show. There are no suspensions listed on his DMV record during that time, even though the agency has the discretion to suspend someone’s license without a conviction.

Less than a year later, as his case wound its way through the slow-moving court system, Singh plowed his semi into the back of a car in Fresno County, killing a woman, records show. He ultimately pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter in Kern County. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in Fresno for the second fatal crash. The DMV finally took away his driving privileges in February of last year.

Prosecutors say Jadon Mendez was speeding in December 2021 in Santa Clara County when he lost control and caused a crash that killed a mother of three young children. A few weeks later he got a speeding ticket. And yet, the DMV issued him his current driver’s license on Jan. 27, 2022 — 49 days after the fatal crash.

There were no suspensions listed on his DMV record as of early this year, even though Mendez was charged with manslaughter in May 2022. The judge in his case ordered him not to drive, as a condition of his release. But such court orders don’t necessarily show up on a driver’s DMV record.

That might be why he didn’t get in more trouble in December 2022 when he got a speeding ticket in Alameda County. Prosecutors didn’t know about that ticket until CalMatters asked about it, said Angela Bernhard, assistant DA in the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office.

Mendez’s manslaughter case is still open, and his license is still listed as valid.

When asked about the Mendez case and others, Orrock acknowledged that while there's a DMV process for deciding when to revoke or suspend a license, "sometimes the process takes a while to happen."

When the DMV doesn’t act at all

In many cases, the DMV doesn’t take action even after a conviction.

In May 2022, a semi driver named Ramon Pacheco made a U-turn in front of an oncoming motorcycle, killing 29-year-old Dominic Lopez-Toney, who was finishing his rotations to be a doctor.

Court records show Pacheco had gotten in trouble behind the wheel before. He had been arrested for DUI in 2009, caused a collision in 2013 and got a ticket in 2016 for making an unsafe turn. It wasn’t enough to keep him off the road.

Neither was killing a man.

Months after San Joaquin prosecutors charged Pacheco with vehicular manslaughter, he got into another collision for which he was also deemed most at fault.

As the case dragged on, Lopez-Toney’s large but tight-knit family wrote dozens of letters to the court, pleading for justice. Dorothy Toney wrote that, more than a year since her grandson’s death, she was still haunted by images of his “mangled and broken body” and the gruesome details in the police report. “Somedays,” she wrote, “I wish I had been there to gently hold his hands” and “tell him how much I loved him.”

The letters are full of shock and outrage that the driver had faced so few consequences. “Allowing this truck driver to continue driving and engaging in civilian activities with only a mere consequence of probation is appalling,” wrote Lynelle Sigona, the victim’s aunt.

Pacheco ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor manslaughter and received probation. His DMV record as of Feb. 11 indicates his driving privileges were never suspended; his commercial driver’s license is valid.

Pacheco’s defense attorney, Gil Somera, said his client isn’t a reckless driver. His prior incidents are relatively minimal, he said, given the fact that “truck drivers drive thousands and thousands of miles a year.” Pacheco needed to turn around and didn’t think there was another place he could do so, since he was approaching a residential area, Somera added.

Pacheco wasn’t being “inattentive or reckless,” Somera said. “And it’s unfortunate and sad and tragic this young man died because of this decision he made to make a U-turn.”

In the wake of the tragedy, Lopez-Toney’s mother has become an advocate for truck safety.

“Road safety and truck safety is not a priority right now with our legislators, with our government,” Nora Lopez said. “Changing our mindset, our attitudes, our culture on the roads is not impossible.”

Nora Lopez holds a framed photo of her son at her home in Castro Valley on March 12, 2025. Her 29-year-old son, Dominic Lopez-Toney, was struck and killed by a semi-truck days before starting his surgical rotation at a San Joaquin hospital.

(

Christie Hemm Klok

/

CalMatters

)

Nora Lopez has buried Dominic’s urn in her garden and planted a sage bush beside it.

(

Christie Hemm Klok

/

for CalMatters

)

Framed photos of Dominic at Nora Lopez's home in Castro Valley on March 12, 2025.

(

Christie Hemm Klok

/

for CalMatters

)

In an interview at her Castro Valley home, she talked about her only child. He was smart and caring, liked snowboarding and animals, loved food. On vacations they would take cooking classes together, Lopez said. He studied molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and was almost done with medical school.

She still has the dry-erase whiteboards in his old room. One is filled with his small and neat study notes; another has what appears to be a to-do list. There’s a note that says “Surgery: 600.” Lopez said that’s when he was due to start his surgical rotation in a San Joaquin hospital, just a couple of days after he died.

She said he just wanted to help people and serve the Native American community as a doctor, a future that a driver snatched away.

“It’s because of a man’s recklessness and carelessness — no regard for humanity,” she said.

While felony manslaughter is an automatic three-year loss of driving privileges, a misdemeanor typically carries no such penalty. It’s discretionary — it’s up to the DMV to decide whether to do anything. And the man who killed Lopez-Toney is far from alone in facing no apparent punishment from the DMV.

We found nearly 200 drivers with a valid license whose DMV record shows a conviction for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter but for whom there is no suspension listed.

When shown a copy of Pacheco’s current driving report, Lopez sat in silence for several seconds.

“Does this make sense to you? It makes no sense to me,” she said. “With his record, how does he still have a license?”

‘Are we going to put that loaded gun back in their hands?’

Research on dangerous drivers appears to be thin and largely outdated.

Liza Lutzker, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, said much of the focus in the traffic safety world is on creating better design and infrastructure, so people who make honest mistakes don’t end up killing someone.

“I think that the issues of these reckless drivers are a separate and complex problem,” Lutzker said. “The system we have clearly is not working. And people are paying with their lives for it.”

Jeffrey Michael, who researches roadway safety issues at Johns Hopkins University and spent three decades working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said he understands officials might be hesitant to impose harsher penalties more broadly, “for fear of the unintended consequences.”

“We live in a society where driving is really essential,” he said. But he said the findings show the agency needs more scrutiny and analysis of who is on the roads.

“These are not unresolvable problems,” he said.

Leah Shahum, executive director of the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit promoting safe streets, said sometimes officials prioritize preserving people’s ability to drive rather than ensuring safety.

“We don’t all have the right to drive,” Shahum said. “We have the responsibility to drive safely and ensure we don’t hurt others.” She added that many people need to drive in this car-centric state. “That does not mean there can be a license to kill.”

“If we know somebody has a history of dangerous behavior,” she said, “are we going to put that loaded gun back in their hands?”

A memorial for car accident victims on a roadside outside Fresno on March 20, 2025.

(

Larry Valenzuela

/

CalMatters/CatchLight Local

)

The gun metaphor was common in the thousands of vehicular manslaughter cases we looked at across California. One prosecutor described dangerous behavior behind the wheel as akin to firing a gun into a crowd.

In letters to the court, surviving relatives and friends described the hole left behind, writing about an empty seat at a high school graduation, a photo cutout taken without fail to home baseball games.

It’s a void one young man tried to explain to authorities — the sudden, violent, blink-of-an-eye moment where life forever changes. For him, it was at 6:45 p.m. on Feb. 27, 2020, on Lone Tree Way in the Bay Area city of Antioch.

Two brothers, ages 11 and 15, were going to meet their dad at a Burger King. They crossed to the median and then waited for a break in the traffic before continuing to the other side. The older one made it across, according to court documents. His younger brother stepped into the street just as a driver gunned his car to 75 miles an hour — 30 over the speed limit.

The older boy watched as his younger brother “just disappeared.”

This is the first piece in a series about how California lets dangerous drivers stay on the road. Sign up for CalMatters’ License to Kill newsletter to be notified when the next story comes out, and to get more behind-the-scenes information from our reporting. 

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

(

J.W. Hendricks

/

The LA Local

)

In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.