Gavin Hinkley and his fiancee were busy with their wedding, weeks away, when a Riverside County Sheriff’s patrol car flew toward them at 100 mph, ran a red light and crashed into the driver’s side of their car.
Hinkley, 21, died at the scene of the crash in September, and his fiancée, Madeline Fox, 20, suffered “catastrophic” injuries, including permanent brain damage, according to a lawsuit their families filed this week against Riverside County.
The lawsuit alleges that the “gross negligence” and reckless conduct of deputy Glynn Wilburn, who was driving the patrol car, caused Hinkley’s death and Fox’s severe physical and mental disability, grief and emotional distress.
Hinkley was driving the couple’s Tesla and making a left turn at the intersection of Cherry Valley Boulevard and Roberts Street in the town of Calimesa.
Wilburn, the defendant in the lawsuit, began braking shortly before the impact, but was still driving 98 mph seconds before the car slowed to 72 mph, the lawsuit said.
Riverside County, Southern California Edison, American Medical Response of Southern California and the cities of Calimesa and Beaumont are also named as defendants in the lawsuit filed May 7 in Riverside County Superior Court.
Spencer Lucas, an attorney representing the families at Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, said the deputy is responding to the message, but even so, law enforcement must work safely and carefully.
“There is no excuse for a police officer to block a two-lane road with a red light. …He was driving past what would have been reasonable,” said Lucas in an interview with the Times. “This terrible accident was completely avoidable.”
The lawsuit also claims that Southern California Edison was at fault because its equipment obstructed visibility, preventing Hinkley from seeing the rapidly approaching law enforcement vehicle.
He also alleges that paramedics who responded to the accident with the private ambulance company American Medical Response carried the pin and moved it before attending to the serious injuries of Fox and Hinkley.
“The deputy, who only had minor injuries, was taken by an ambulance in time [Hinkley and Fox] they remained inside this accident,” said Lucas.
Fox, because of his brain damage, “has had to start all over again” and learn to swallow, eat on his own, stand up and walk and talk, Lucas said. His mother was appointed as his guardian.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment. Lieutenant Deirdre Vickers said the department is tight-lipped about the proceedings.
The negligence allegations in the suit rely heavily on a recently released California Highway Patrol report on the crash, which analyzed the crash scene and vehicles in detail.
Wilburn testified that “the siren and the forward red and green emergency lights were on,” and that five minutes before the crash, he was driving “in the westbound lanes of Cherry Valley Boulevard at a speed of 100 miles per hour, with no force applied to the accelerator or brakes.”
It said Wilburn “may have realized the Tesla was dangerous” about a second before the crash, at which point he slid his wheel to the right and applied the brakes.
Photos of the Tesla included in the report show the car’s left side doors completely destroyed.
According to data kept by the California Highway Patrol, LA County collisions where the law enforcement vehicle was found to be at fault in recent years. A Times analysis published in October found that the city of LA spent at least $90 million in negotiated settlements in more than 1,200 cases related to impaired driving by police officers over the past decade.
