The family of the Santa Barbara teen who was struck and killed while crossing Milpas Street in October has filed a civil lawsuit against the truck driver.
San Marcos High School student Sergio Romero was walking across Ortega and Milpas streets on Oct. 7 when he was struck by Manuel Flores Jr.
The Santa Barbara Police Department’s investigation of the incident is ongoing, and the District Attorney’s Office will decide whether to file criminal charges against him.
Court records show that Sergio’s parents, Armando and Guadalupe Romero, filed the lawsuit against Flores on Nov. 4. Los Angeles-based attorney Robert Stoll Jr., of the firm Stoll, Nussbaum & Polakov, is representing the family.
The family claims property damage, personal injury and wrongful death. General negligence and negligence per se are also listed as causes of action against Flores.
“Plaintiffs have been deprived of the love, companionship, care and affection, society, comfort, protection, services and support of their son, Sergio Romero,” the complaint reads.
It also states that Flores was operating the vehicle as part of his job, and lists California Shopping Cart Retrieval Corporation Inc. and Scolari’s Food & Drug Company as defendants.
Flores “so negligently and carelessly entrusted, managed, maintained, drove or caused to be driven that certain white flatbed truck, so as to proximately cause said vehicle to strike decedent Sergio Romero, who was a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk, resulting in his death when he was hit,” according to the complaint.
“In doing so, the defendant violated various statutes, codes, ordinances, safety orders and other regulations,” the complaint stated, adding that Flores was speeding in a way that endangered people or property.
At a community forum on Nov. 2, Santa Barbara police Sgt. Mike McGrew said that 19-year-old Flores was traveling at “a minimum of 49 miles an hour” when he struck Romero.
“It’s a tragic incident,” McGrew said then. “It’s very sad for us to have to investigate.”
Guadalupe Romero, Sergio’s mother, spoke several weeks later at another forum in Spanish to the two city traffic engineers and one police investigator in attendance, imploring them to make the changes needed to prevent more deaths.
Through a translator, she said she doesn’t want her son’s death to go to waste, and she doesn’t want any other family to go through what she and her family are going through now.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.