A 30-year-old man convicted of plowing his pickup into a crowd of pedestrians on a sidewalk in downtown Fullerton in 2019 resolved his legal issues in the case Monday when he pleaded guilty to DUI causing injury and was sentenced to time served in jail.<\/p>\n
Christopher Jose Solis pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of a drug causing injury and admitted sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury. Over the objections of prosecutors, Solis accepted a plea bargain from Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin to also plead guilty to an infraction of possessing cannabis by a driver. He was sentenced to 286 days in jail, time he has already served in the case.<\/p>\n
Solis was convicted in February 2024 of a felony count of failing to stop at a hit-and-run accident with injury as well as misdemeanor counts of hit-and-run with property damage and possession of a controlled substance. Jurors, however, deadlocked 7-5 in favor of guilt on the felony count of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury.<\/p>\n
Before those verdicts, Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paer dismissed two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n
Yellin placed Solis on three years of formal probation and ordered him to complete a three-month first offender alcohol program.<\/p>\n
Solis careened into the crowd of pedestrians just before 1:50 a.m. Feb. 10, 2019.<\/p>\n
Solis \u201cmade a calculated decision to swerve onto the sidewalk \u2026 into a crowd of people,\u201d Deputy District Attorney Caitlin Harrington said in her opening statement of the trial in 2024.<\/p>\n
Riley Hoover sustained complex facial fractures and was left with \u201clifelong injuries\u201d in the crash, Harrington said. Another victim sustained a dislocated hip, while a woman suffered a broken pelvis, the prosecutor added. One man suffered a burned foot, and another woman\u2019s teeth were cracked.<\/p>\n
Shortly after midnight the day of the crash, Solis was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers on the San Diego (5) Freeway in Mission Viejo and cited and released for driving under the influence of marijuana and Xanax, Harrington said.<\/p>\n
The defendant continued driving to a music studio in Santa Ana, where he smoked marijuana, Harrington said. From there, he drove to downtown Fullerton where there are a lot of clubs and restaurants, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
When he got back into his Toyota Tacoma he \u201czoomed down an alley on Santa Fe\u201d where he first collided with a car driven by Uber driver Hector Quiroz.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor showed video that showed Solis swerving and plowing into the pedestrians.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefendant hopped a planter and collided with a tree \u2026 the only thing that stopped him,\u201d Harrington said.<\/p>\n
Multiple bystanders angrily confronted Solis and a fight broke out as they detained him until police arrived, Harrington said. Some of the bystanders lifted the defendant\u2019s truck up to free two of the trapped victims, the prosecutor added.<\/p>\n
Solis told police, \u201cThese drunk people got in my way,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cThere\u2019s zero accountability for the choice that he made,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Solis failed field sobriety tests, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was clear the defendant was impaired by something,\u201d Harrington said, adding that the \u201cwhite and green film\u201d he had on his mouth was consistent with marijuana ingestion.<\/p>\n
Blood tests showed he had marijuana in his system as well as flualprazolam, which is \u201cthe version (of Xanax) you get on the street \u2026 for partying,\u201d Harrington alleged. Fullerton police found three more of the depressant pills in the truck.<\/p>\n
Solis\u2019 attorney in the 2024 trial, Alan Spears, said the prosecution\u2019s case was a \u201cgross oversimplification\u201d of what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fullerton police rushed to judgment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Spears argued that his client, \u201cwhile maybe the proximate cause of this accident, is not criminally responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the jurors would \u201chave to consider whether Uber and Lyft drivers were negligent.\u201d The attorney said the drivers\u2019 alleged double parking to pick up fares in the area may have \u201cbroken the chain of causation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ride-hailing and taxi drivers have a designated area to park to pick up their patrons, but they were not using them, Spears said.<\/p>\n
Solis\u2019 \u201cbrains were scrambled a little bit\u201d after crashing into a tree and getting beaten by the angry mob, Spears said.<\/p>\n
The defendant had an expert testify that an event data recorder retrieved from Solis\u2019 truck showed he was only going about 11 mph when he swerved away from one of the ride-hailing vehicles, Spears said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 30-year-old man convicted of plowing his pickup into a crowd of pedestrians on a sidewalk in downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,8197,2628,4164,187484,105572,4165,16215,7540],"class_list":["post-516686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-collision","tag-fullerton","tag-guilty","tag-hurt","tag-multiple","tag-pleads","tag-that","tag-victims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516686","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=516686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}