The loss of the OceanGate submarine in late 2023 didn’t really shock me much.
On one hand, I knew first-hand that carbon fiber was a terrible material for submarines. Having tried to build a molded battery shell for my college RoboSub team back in 2017, I couldn’t imagine scaling up the material that I found nearly impossible to seal against even low-pressure water leaks.
But, on the other, it had been less than a year since I found myself keenly aware that I could have my life taken from me in a fraction of a second, not beneath the Atlantic Ocean, but in a setting as familiar as my own neighborhood.
A family, driving home late at night in their hatchback, taking an unremarkable turn on El Camino Real, was struck at blinding speed by a Mercedes, driven by a teenager whose first priority was to one-up the BMW he was street racing, perhaps imagining that he was at Laguna Seca, where doubtless his parents could easily have afforded to take him to play.
Greg Ammen and Grace Spiridon were killed and their daughters left orphaned.
Locals in Redwood City were horrified. Facebook groups and newspaper comment sections filled with condolences and frustration. A fundraiser for the orphaned children was started.
The then-teenage driver of that Mercedes, Cesar Morales, was convicted but sentenced to a mere 90 days of home detention.
The driver of the BMW, Kyle Harrison, was eventually convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison for vehicular manslaughter and street racing.
Unfortunately, Kyle will never serve that sentence. On March 15, 2025, he quietly died inside the Maple Street Correctional Center from a mixture of three drugs: a combination any pharmacist or two-bit language model would know is lethal.
Who administers the Maple Street Correctional Center? Sheriff Christina Corpus does — for now.
When a family is fragmented by misapplied competitiveness, ignorance of safety, recklessness, blind ambition, we all shake our heads.
“They should have known better. If only there were some piece of technology that could have prevented this [like a radar or red light camera]. If only the driver of the Bolt had craned their neck a bit further, perceived the black glint of German plastic racing just far enough in advance…“
But I would argue Kyle’s death is just as harmful. What is justice, what is the meaning of a conviction and sentence when someone can evade it merely by dying? When someone enables that offender to evade it, through chemical sleight of hand?
Where is the justice when someone – an unethical prison pharmacist, a prison guard with no qualms about smuggling drugs, a prison psychologist who helps someone take the easy way out rather than counseling them to persist – is not held accountable when someone under their watch dies?
Where is the justice when someone who has not yet redeemed themselves to society, someone who perhaps still feels they have a great debt to pay, someone who had every right to life as anyone, is denied the opportunity to service that debt?
Worse yet, what does this say about the safety of Redwood City’s prisons? If Kyle Harrison could die in the Maple Street Jail, and nobody faces any consequences, any other person in captivity, or even you, could die in that jail. All it would take to bring you within the proximity of Kyle’s murderer is a bad night, or a bar fight, or a misunderstood argument with a neighbor, or an especially egregious moving violation.
Kyle Harrison’s death is a miscarriage of justice. The city has no right to have dismissed this case without a full disclosure of their investigations and a clear plan to prevent this crime from recurring.
It’s clear that street racing culture hasn’t changed. Open your windows any weekend evening; you won’t be waiting long before you hear a Honda roaring through the SUV-lined residential capillaries at 25 over the limit.
We can’t vote on street racing culture. It’s underground. Now, as ever, the best we can do to fight unsafe drivers is to keep your wits about ourselves.
What we can vote against is politicians who flout the law and violate our rights. Redwood City seems to believe it can extrajudicially murder American citizens in a state where the death penalty has been effectively halted since 2019.
Will that precedent be allowed to stand?
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