A San Bernardino man made his first court appearance Wednesday after being arrested on suspicion of a drunk driving crash that killed two children last weekend.
The grandparents of her two girls, 3-year-old Alena and 4-year-old Nevea, attended the arraignment in Rancho Cucamonga where 28-year-old Alexis Garcia pleaded not guilty to seven charges. did.
“I was angry and I was holding up these pictures so you could see my children’s faces,” Lisa Aviles, the girls’ grandmother, said of the actions in the courtroom. “(It’s) infuriating. We’ve lost so much sleep. We’re not eating. We don’t want to celebrate Thanksgiving.”
The fatal crash happened Sunday around 11 p.m. at Riverside and Walnut streets in Rialto.
Police said Garcia’s blue Dodge Ram ran a red light and crashed into a white Honda Accord driven by the girls’ mother. Surveillance camera footage from a nearby home showed Garcia attempting to flee the crash scene in a damaged truck.
“He then tried to run away from the broken down vehicle again. Luckily there was a good Samaritan who kept him there and called the police who arrested him on arrival,” said the prosecutor in the case. Jamie Cimino said.
The crash site has become an even bigger memorial with strangers coming to leave balloons and flowers in memory of the children who died.
People mourning Alena and Nevea’s deaths have left candles, flowers and balloons near the intersection where the fatal crash occurred.
Garcia was charged with second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter and was scheduled to appear in court again in the first week of December.
“This is a tragedy that no one will ever forget,” said Gilbert Aviles, Alena and Nevea’s grandfather.
The girl’s mother was released from the hospital with minor injuries, but her father remained hospitalized as of Wednesday.
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