A hit-and-run motorist, who was under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he struck a community activist removing graffiti in Mission Beach, pleaded guilty June 14 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
\nJonathan Domingo Garcia, 23, faces a maximum of 15 years in state prison when he is sentenced Aug. 30.
\nAccording to testimony at a preliminary hearing in April, Garcia was fleeing from another motorist he had rear-ended at North Jetty Road and Mission Boulevard around dusk on Feb. 12 when he stopped at a stop sign, then accelerated, hitting 69-year-old Maruta Gardner near the curb.
\nGardner’s husband said his wife was putting her Kindle reading device in the basket of her tricycle \u2013 which was parked in the road \u2013 when she was struck.
\nGarcia drove off and pulled into a parking lot, then drove back past the crash scene. A police officer followed Garcia and pulled him over.
\nAbout three hours before the crash, Garcia and a friend were seen slashing tires on cars a few blocks away, according to testimony.
\nA detective testified that Garcia admitted drinking beers and smoking marijuana that day.
\nGarcia’s blood-alcohol content was measured at .079 percent after the collision, and marijuana and depressants were also in his system, said Deputy District Attorney Steven Schott.
\nGardner, a former principal at Mission Bay High School, was honored by the San Diego City Council last year, which declared Nov. 3 “Maruta Gardner Day.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A hit-and-run motorist, who was under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he struck a community activist removing graffiti in Mission Beach, pleaded guilty June 14 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Jonathan Domingo Garcia, 23, faces a maximum of 15 years in state prison when he is sentenced Aug. 30. According to testimony […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Guilty plea from motorist who killed Maruta Gardner","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}