For the fourth time in less than a week, someone riding a bicycle has been killed by a motorist in Southern California.
And for the third time, the victim was murdered by a hit-and-run driver. Because that’s the right way to describe a conscious decision to leave someone to die in the street, even if the law doesn’t agree.
According to the Lake Elsinore-Wildomar edition of Patch, the victim was riding in Homeland, California shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday when he was run over and killed by a heartless coward who fled the scene without stopping.
And no, I never heard of Homeland before, either.
The victim, identified as 45-year old Homeland resident Juan Holguin, was riding his bike on Leon Road at Queen Palm Drive when the driver of a Gray Mazda 3 plowed into him at an unknown speed, and apparently an unknown direction.
Witnesses immediately reported Holguin down in the roadway, and he was taken to Riverside University Medical Center in Moreno Valley, where he died four hours later.
The suspect vehicle was found abandoned in a dirt alley approximately one-and-a-half miles from the crash scene with “damage consistent with the reported collision,” according to a CHP spokesperson, including visible “damage to the passenger side of the front windshield.”
There is a 35 mph speed limit on Leon Road, but the straight, wide-open roadway, just half block south of California Highway 74, is engineered to encourage speeding.
Anyone with information is urged to call the CHP Temecula office at 951/466-4300.
This is at least the 52nd bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the sixth in Riverside County — the second in the county in just three-and-a-half days.
At least 17 of those SoCal deaths this year have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Juan Holguin and all of his loved ones.
