A 21-year-old Renton man is facing charges of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault after his alleged involvement in a Feb. 26 hit-and-run that left two people dead and one person seriously injured.<\/p>\n
The weather was snowy and the roads were slick in the Seattle area on Feb. 26. According to charging documents, a collision occurred around 3 a.m. on Southbound Interstate 5 near the West Seattle Freeway. Manuel Avitia was driving a Mercedes when he was reportedly struck by a Chevrolet Cavalier driven by Skyler Thorton and occupied by his passenger Terrell Aaron.<\/p>\n
Following the uncontrolled stop both vehicles took after the collision, Avitia got out of the car to pick up a piece of his vehicle and examine the damage.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the defendant, Antonio Michael Lopez, was approaching the scene of the crash in a Jeep Wrangler with his girlfriend in the passenger seat, who, according to documents, was getting a ride from a party after she got too intoxicated. The Jeep was estimated to have been traveling at around 70 mph when it collided with the rear of the stopped Chevrolet Cavalier.<\/p>\n
According to charging documents, the collision threw Avitia on the road. He was hospitalized after reportedly suffering a bleeding head injury, fractured ribs, and a lacerated liver. Thorton and Aaron suffered catastrophic injuries and were pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
Lopez and his passenger slipped away from the scene during the commotion, according to charging documents. Police have issued a warrant for his arrest as they continue to search for him<\/p>\n
According to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Lopez has a criminal and traffic history that includes “inattentive driving” and multiple no insurance\/no driver’s license infractions, speeding 23 mph over the limit with no license. Less than six years ago in 2017, he reportedly drove on the shoulder of a road and killed a teenager fleeing the scene.<\/p>\n
Authorities allege Lopez “shows no inclination to follow court orders” and has now killed a total of three people with his car and fled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The defendant was previously involved in a fatal hit-and-run in 2017. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":849,"featured_media":62271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,24],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-62270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-northwest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/849"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62270"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=62270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}