SAN DIEGO — A San Diego Superior Court judge ruled that the city must go to trial in the case involving a high-profile deadly wrong-way crash that killed three people on Interstate 805 in 2018.
The trial in two separate but linked cases filed by the parents of a former YouTube star, Trevor Heitmann, and the family of the mother and daughter, Aileen and Aryana Pizarro, that Heitmann killed is set for November 17.
Each family, the Hietmanns and the Pizarros, allege the same thing: San Diego Police Officers failed to intervene and access the 18-year-old YouTube star known as "McSkillet' hours before he drove his McLaren at speeds in excess of 100 miles-per-hour in the wrong direction on the 805 at Carrol Canyon Road striking the SUV driven by Aileen Pizarro and occupied by her 12-year-old daughter Aryana on August 23, 2018.
For the Pizarro and Heitmann families, oddly connected in their fight against the city, the November trial is the final chapter in a long battle to hold the city responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.
"The city can't get away with this. The cops who allowed this to happen, can't get away with this and we should not have had five years of fighting this fight," said 24-year-old Angelo Pizarro, whose mom Aileen, and sister, Aryana, died in the crash.
For Pizarro, who not only has to live with the memory of answering the door when California Highway Patrol officers knocked to inform him that his mother and sister were dead, the past five years of litigating the case, trying to get justice for his mom and little sister has been taxing.
"During those five years, the city council denied settling when they knew that they were in the wrong. It just shouldn't happen again to anybody," said Pizarro. "For me, it's not about the money, I don't care about the money. I don't care about being on the news. I just want this to never happen again. This should never happen again."
Since 2019, the city has tried to withhold the 911 call that Heitmann's parents and psychiatrist made the day of the deadly crash as well as police body camera footage captured as Heitmann's parents and psychiatrist urged them to help the young man before he hurt himself and others.
In the latest ruling that now sets the stage for trial, a judge denied the city's motion to dismiss the case on reason that police officers do not have a duty to intervene in mental health calls.
The Call for Help
Just after 8:00 a.m. on August 23, 2018, a caller phoned police requesting that police evaluate the 18-year-old YouTube celebrity Heitmann for a possible mental health hold, also known as a 5150 call.
Police arrived at the Heitmann family's Carmel Valley home less than 15 minutes later.
It was during that mental health call, footage from which that was captured by police body cameras, and released after a legal fight, showed police officers at the home speaking to Heitmann's father and later to Heitmann's neighbor who was also a psychiatrist.
During the interaction with police, Heitmann’s neighbor and psychiatrist alerted police to the danger of Heitmann’s mental state, according to lawsuits filed by the Pizarro and Heitmann families, telling police that Heitmann was a danger to himself and others.
Watch the police body camera footage below:
"He's got manic behavior," said Heitman's mother.
"He's never been diagnosed?" asked one of the officers.
"He needs to go to a doctor," she told them.
"Before you start ma'am, there's a criteria. He has to be gravely disabled, he has to have a credible threat against somebody... or harmful to his own self. There's only certain criteria we can take him under," said another officer.
"Downtown San Diego all the homeless laying around they're not even gravely disabled," he added.
"Who bought the car for him?" asked one officer.
"He bought it," said Heitmann's father.
"He bought a McLaren? At 18 years old?" asked an officer.
"He's a very intelligent kid," said Heitmann's father. "He made $4 million in 10 months."
"OK, he's got a teach me his ways," said an officer.
"Not right now," said Heitmann's father.
At one point, a psychiatrist who was a family friend pleaded with officers.
Heitmann's mother also told police that her son told her that he was "invincible" and was driving 110 miles per hour down the wrong side of the road the day before.
"He has to be doing something violent. He has to be wanting to harm himself or harm someone else," said an officer.
Less than an hour later police officers left the home without any interaction with Heitmann, determining that Heitmann was not a "credible threat."
The Crash
A short while later, Heitmann emerged from his room. He got into his McLaren sports car and backed out of the driveway, ramming his father's car in the process.
Parents at a nearby Carmel Valley school spotted Heitmann and the McLaren on the blacktop of the school, after running the sports car through the chain link fence.
A man tried to approach Heitmann. After exchanging a few words, Heitmann sped off. The man returned, stating, "Something is wrong with him."
The interaction was recorded on a witness's cell phone.
It was then that Heitmann raced off towards Interstate 805. He punched the sports car up the off-ramp in the wrong direction and into oncoming traffic.
Aileen and Aryana Pizarro just so happened to be the first car that reached Hietmann.
In 2019, both families sued the city over the police officers refusal to assess Heitmann's mental health and their failure to call the Psychiatric Emergency Response Team.
Both the Pizarro Family and Heitmann Family sued the city of San Diego for negligence, claiming officers failed to act on warnings from his family and psychiatrist as well as for not interviewing Heitmann to assess his condition.
The families say the officers had a mandatory duty to assess Heitmann.
For Angelo Pizzaro, he is ready and willing to let a jury decide if the police could have prevented his mom and sister's death that day.
"I want to make it to where this never happens again. It is awful that my mom and sister had to be the ones to make a stand to do that."
Added Pizarro, "I just never want another son or another brother to have to go through what I've had to go through the last five years."
The trial is now set for November 17.
San Diego's City Attorney's Office declined to respond to the recent ruling.