Multiple sources are reporting that police in Menifee responded to a report of a burglary in progress on the 27000 block of Hemingway Court around 4:54 pm Monday.

A car driven by a woman believed to be involved in the burglary was seen leaving the area, and fled when the cops attempted to pull her over.

The driver was headed west on Holland Road at a high rate of speed when she ran the red light at Holland and Evans Road, striking the boy, who was riding north on Evans Road.

The victim, identified as 13-year-old Menifee resident Cody Villatoro, died at the scene, despite the efforts of police and paramedics.

The driver continued to flee until her car became disabled, at which point police arrested the woman, 21-year old Temecula resident Melody Valdez, on suspicion of evading police and homicide, among other charges.

So let’s repeat. Villatoro was riding with the green light, and apparently did nothing wrong other than share the planet with a driver wanted by police for a nonviolent property crime. But now he’s dead, because of a driver’s bad decision to flee and the cops’ choice to continue the chase.##

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[–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

I get that youre one of those people who doesn’t give a shit about the actual facts of the situation and wouldnt change your mind regardless, but Ill make the point even clearer anyways.

The distance between the house that was robbed and the intersection where she hit the kid is 1.2 miles driving. We dont know if she was already driving recklessly and fleeing the scene before the cops arrived, which is entirely possible. But lets be generous and assume that she was driving the speed limit until the cops tried to pull her over

We know they did that away from the street where the crime was committed. Again we can be generous and say it happened at the Huston/Bradley intersection. Thats 3/4s of the distance from the house to the intersection. If she was driving 45mph until that point, it would have taken her like 40 seconds. If she then took off up to 80+mph, she would have been going 1.3mi per minute, and would have closed the remaining 0.5miles in around 20 seconds. Again we made some very generous assumptions that could have been incorrect, and the time could have been far shorter.

20 seconds is hardly enough time for a chase to have even been initiated. It’s hardly enough time for the driver to decide to stop fleeing or realize the cops backed off if they did. I dont understand how youre so certain that this article is not a very sensationalized portrayal of the events that occurred. The events are certainly not as the article implies that they are at the very least. At most she could have hit the kid like 2 minutes after running out of the house. It probably was even less time than that

The irony in all this is that you probably wont even read this comment, meanwhile you accuse me of not caring about the situation. Obviously I care enough to have written this much about it, but I doubt you care to even think about it long enough to even consider what happened

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (6 children)

    A car driven by a woman believed to be involved in the burglary was seen leaving the area, and fled when the cops attempted to pull her over.

    For all those paragraphs you sure dont read. We know she sped off when the cops tried to pull her over. It says so right fucken here in the linked article. You are just making excuses for cops being fuccen stupid.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Who is more evil? The cops that tried to pull this woman over or the woman who killed the kid then dragged his body and still didn't stop?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Would the woman have fled if the cops didnt chase her? The question is not one of who is most evil, but what actions could be taken to reduce suffering the most. Or, you could just be fucken smart about it, she was going somewhere, presumably at normal speeds. Why not get her where shes going? Why is it some Time Crisis event where you need to roar your engines and get her NOW NOW NOW. Makes no sense. The article goes on to mention many more biking deaths this year. Maybe if we didnt decide the only way to travel was to pay the fattest grubs buckets of money to stretch a four ton beast down a spackle of asphalt this wouldnt even be possible.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I hate car drivers and think they are all entitled pieces of shit. If a cop hit the kid I would totally agree with you! My issue here is this women fled and sped away right when she saw the police. Then she ran stop signs, hit and dragged a kid and kept on driving. I think that's what is evil about it. At least stop and render aid!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (2 children)

    I'm not saying shes good. I'm saying her actions would have been different if the cops were less interested in being action heroes than saving lives. They should not have chased her. There was no real reason they had to.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Ok. Well I think she was going to kill someone eventually. Maybe she's been driving recklessly for years and finally this time karma caught up with her? We just don't know. What we do know is she killed a 13 year old boy on a bike ride. That's unacceptable to me. I want all drivers who kill vulnerable people with their cars to be charged with murder!

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago*

    This isnt fucking hard. No cops. Bitch wasn't speeding. Cops see her, they go, "BOGIE IN HEMINGWAY COURT, I REPEAT, BOGIE IN HEMINGWAY COURT" and rip through the fucking city like rabid animals. So she does something quite reasonable and gets the fuck out of there, fast. You're putting all the onus on someone who did not even commit a violent crime. We dont even know what she stole from it could have been fucking Walmart but the article doesnt say.

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