Nineteen-year-old Adam Carl Garrett is scheduled to be in Westminster court this morning to face arraignment on charges that he drove into and killed a bicyclist one early morning in May before fleeing the scene.
Hung Khac
Do, 25, died 40 minutes after an ambulance took him to a hospital following the hit-and-run on Warner Avenue near the 405 freeway exit in Huntington Beach.
Garrett, who is from Surf City, is charged with one felony count of hit-and-run causing death and
one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter without gross
negligence.
If convicted, he could spend up to four years in
state prison.
]
Garrett was driving his Toyota Camry north on the 405 through Fountain Valley just before 3 a.m. on May 15 when he exited at Warner Avenue and
headed west into Huntington Beach. He allegedly crashed into the back of the bike ridden by Do, who was thrown into the far right lane of Warner.
Without assisting Do or informing police or paramedics, and with heavy damage to the front end of the Camry, Garret then drove off to his home four miles away, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office. Prosecutors further claim he called 9-1-1 at 3:20 a.m. and falsely reported his involvement in the incident.
A limousine driver spotted Do on the road and called his brother, who in turn called 9-1-1.
Another driver stopped to assist Do, while a passenger administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation until police arrived. Do was taken by ambulance to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was pronounced
dead 40 minutes later. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be
multiple blunt force trauma injuries.
Later that
same morning as the incident, Huntington Beach Police discovered the damage to the Camry and arrested Garrett. He's been out of custody on $50,000 bail pending this morning's arraignment, which is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. at the West Justice Center, Westminster.
His defense attorney will be up against a homicide prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Nancy Hayashida.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.