A man with five prior driving under the influence convictions was charged with murder after fatally striking a man crossing a California street, officials say.
Jonathan Lopez, 31, of Orange, is facing a number of felony charges, including murder, evading while driving recklessly and DUI with three or more priors, in relation to a fatal hit-and-run, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a March 14 news release.
Lopez was driving down Tustin Avenue in Orange around 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, March 12, when he hit a man crossing the street, prosecutors said.
The man was found lying in the street with “traumatic injuries” and later pronounced dead at the scene, the Orange Police Department said in a March 12 Facebook post.
Lopez, however, did not stop, according to prosecutors.
A short time later, officers spotted a “silver sedan with major front-end damage,” police said.
He led police on “a short high-speed pursuit,” in which he ran “a red light and three stop signs,” according to prosecutors.
At the end of the pursuit, prosecutors said Lopez was also “seen drinking alcohol and flipping officers off.”
Lopez was arrested after the more than 1-mile-long pursuit, police said.
Prosecutors said Lopez has been convicted of five DUIs since 2011.
Ten years after his first conviction, he pleaded guilty in December 2021 to a number of DUI-related charges, including “one felony count of driving under the influence of alcohol,” according to prosecutors.
For this, prosecutors said he was given a 16-month prison sentence.
“Not even jail time could prevent him from putting his own selfish actions over the lives of everyone else on the road that day,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the release. “This time he’s being charged with a Watson murder because locking him up for decades is going to be the only way from him killing anyone else.”
If convicted on all charges, prosecutors said Lopez could face “a maximum sentence of 18 years to life” in prison.
Orange is about a 30-mile drive southeast from Los Angeles.
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