LOS ANGELES
Parents of PCC student
sue over girl's death
The parents of a 17-year-old
Pasadena City College student
who was struck and killed by
* a vehicle on the Pomona (60)
Freeway last year are suing
s the city of El Monte and the
state, alleging police ignored
" pleas to help her get home.
Anette Esmaili and Rodolfo
Salazar of Monterey Park,
mother and father of Sophia
Ilona Salazar, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Los Ange-
i les Superior Court, alleging
wrongful death and negligence. They are asking for
unspecified damages.
According to the complaint,
the young woman left a party
• at a Monterey Park home at
^ around midnight May 28,
2010, and walked a mile
before becoming lost.
About 12:30 a.m., she
approached two California
Highway Patrol officers at a
7-Eleven store on Monterey
Pass Road and asked for help
in getting home, according to
% her parents' court papers.
"Although Sophia was
visibly shaken, disoriented,
lost and alone, the ... officers
refused to drive her home a
few miles away," the suit
alleges.
The officers hailed the girl
a cab, but she could not pay
the $10 fare, so she resumed
her quest to find her way
home on foot, according to
the complaint.
"The officers failed to pursue the distraught minor or
in any way attempt to stop
her from walking along at
night in a high-crime area,"
the suit says.
El Monte police and the
CHP later received calls of a
young woman walking alone
on the Pomona Freeway and
one of them sent a helicopter,
but neither agency sent a
rescue vehicle, according to
the lawsuit.
The former South Pasadena
High School student was
struck by a Jeep about 1 a.m.
while walking along the 60
Freeway near the Long Beach
(710) Freeway in East Los
Angeles.
