at Atlantic Avenue and Sixth Street on Jan. 4<\/a>, slamming into a Nissan Altima and killing two people inside. Three months earlier, authorities allege, she also killed 35-year-old Raul Agustin Galloppa as he rode a bicycle back to his Alamitos Beach home.<\/p>\nGalloppa\u2019s family has been trying to find out more information about the first crash for months.<\/p>\n
Police have publicly released some basic details: Owens, they said, struck Galloppa on Fourth Street around 7:55 p.m. on Oct. 6, leaving him seriously injured. Owens was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless driving, but was quickly released.<\/p>\n
Galloppa\u2019s girlfriend, Megan Sengnalyvong, said she was close enough to hear the crash. She said she spoke to officers at the scene and at the hospital, but she hasn\u2019t heard a word from them since \u2014 even after Galloppa died in the hospital weeks after the crash.<\/p>\n
She and Galloppa\u2019s family, which lives more than 5,000 miles away in Argentina, hired a lawyer who filed a records request asking for any reports and other documents about the crash. It was met with a blanket denial. They later added a request for information about the second crash Owens allegedly caused, but were similarly denied.<\/p>\n
The victim\u2019s father, Raul Antonio Galloppa, said they don\u2019t understand why. \u201cWe want to process our grief,\u201d he said in Spanish.<\/p>\n
Galloppa\u2019s family filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order the records be released. This week, the department acknowledged it wrongfully withheld at least some records from them. (The admission came shortly after the Long Beach Post inquired about the lawsuit. Police declined to answer questions about whether that factored into their decision.)<\/p>\n
Police officials say they\u2019re now working to release more information, but Galloppa\u2019s family will still pursue its lawsuit, according to their attorney, James Perry. He said they\u2019re not convinced the LBPD will hand over everything the law mandates.<\/p>\n
California requires police to publicly release only limited information about crimes, such as basic factual circumstances and details of any arrests. Crash victims or their surviving family, however, are entitled to more, according to David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. That includes reports with the names and statements of witnesses to the crash, Loy said.<\/p>\n
Galloppa\u2019s family says Long Beach originally refused to release any of this information, claiming a blanket exemption because it was part of an investigative file. The only recourse to challenge this is to sue, Loy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the same information as the general public and we feel like as a family, we should have the information of why this happened,\u201d Yanina Galloppa, the victim\u2019s sister, said in Spanish.<\/p>\n
Perry, a former prosecutor who now practices personal injury law, said he routinely files records requests for things like 911 audio, witness statements, investigative reports and results of any DUI tests. It\u2019s crucial information, he explained, to determine who\u2019s at fault and decide whether his clients should sue.<\/p>\n
Perry called the department\u2019s initial refusal to release any records, not even ones with sensitive investigative information redacted, \u201cterribly concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fair to the public, it\u2019s not fair to my clients, and it does a disservice to the laws that have been repeatedly interpreted in this area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/img-0764jpg-873818-r69bzglc-438207-IOnTy8c1-1024x768.jpg\")
Raul Agustin Galloppa, who was killed while biking along Fourth Street on Oct. 6, 2025. Courtesy of James Perry.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Galloppa\u2019s family said they learned from the Long Beach Post\u2019s news coverage, not police, that Owens had been re-arrested and was now believed to be responsible for the second deadly crash.<\/a><\/p>\nAt that time, months after Gallopa\u2019s death, Owens had still not been charged with killing him. When asked about the timing, a Los Angeles County District Attorney\u2019s office spokesperson said such investigations can routinely take that long: \u201cProsecutors must thoroughly review evidence, including witness statements, forensic data, accident reports and toxicology results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Owens was finally charged with manslaughter, authorities issued a warrant for her arrest, but that was two days after she allegedly ran the red light at Atlantic Avenue, killing the two people in the Altima. Owens fled the wreck on foot and soon after, police allege, she called dispatch to try to report her car had been stolen.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 6, the same day the warrant for Galloppa\u2019s death was issued, she responded by coming to the police station and turning herself in, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Owens is now charged with two counts of murder in addition to manslaughter. In a brief jailhouse interview, she declined to answer questions about either crash.<\/p>\n
Galloppa\u2019s family, meanwhile, is awaiting their chance to convince a judge that they\u2019re entitled to more information about his death and the investigation into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to turn our grief into accountability so that this doesn\u2019t happen again,\u201d said Yanina Galloppa. \u201cWe want answers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grieving family is suing the Long Beach Police Department to learn information about the crash that killed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-156543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}