A 21-year-old Los Angeles man accused of causing a crash that killed two people, including an off-duty Los Angeles police officer, in a Northridge crash in November 2023 was stopped and cited six months earlier after speeding and running a red light through the same intersection, an LAPD officer testified at the man’s preliminary hearing.
Los Angeles police officer Alexander Martinez testified Wednesday that he stopped a red sedan being driven by Brian David Olivarez on May 1, 2023 after he saw the car blow through a red light at Lindley Avenue while headed westbound on Roscoe Boulevard.
He said he warned Olivarez that if he ran a red light and killed someone, he could be charged with vehicular manslaughter. Olivarez was cited for driving without a license or insurance as a result of that stop.
“I stated that if he were to run a red light and caused someone to be killed that he could be charged with manslaughter and that he needed to slow down,” Martinez testified.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Efrain M. Aceves ruled that testimony was sufficient to prove implied malice – that Olivarez was aware of the dangers of his speeding and running a red light – when he did the same thing about 1:15 a.m. Nov. 4, 2023, causing the crash that killed off-duty LAPD officer Darrell Cunningham and Jorge Soriano. Both men were 31-years old.
Aceves said enough evidence existed to send Olivarez’s case to trial, where he faces two counts of murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter and two counts of driving under the influence causing injury.
A motion by Olivarez’s attorney, Mark Melnick, to dismiss the murder charges was denied.
Cunningham was driving the car that was hit by Olivarez and Soriano was in the front passenger seat, according to evidence presented at Tuesday’s hearing.
Edgar Martinez, an off-duty San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy, was in the rear right passenger seat of Cunningham’s car and survived the crash.
Brandon Jeon, an LAPD traffic investigator, testified that Olivarez was traveling an estimated 80 to 97 mph westbound on Roscoe Boulevard in a BMW sedan when he ran a red light at Lindley Avenue and broadsided the passenger side of Cunningham’s Infiniti sedan traveling northbound.
A blood draw taken at Northridge Hospital more than four hours after the crash showed Olivarez’s blood alcohol level at 0.067, LAPD traffic investigator Jeffrey Ngo testified. Olivarez was 20 years old at the time of the crash and Ngo testified that the legal limit for drivers under 21 is 0.01.
Ngo testified that while at the hospital he spoke with Olivarez’s then-girlfriend Angela Lujan, who was the passenger in his car, but could not interview Olivarez because he was unconscious.
He said he and Soriano took an Uber to meet with Cunningham at a Yard House in Northridge, then Cunningham drove them to Surly Goat in Encino. Cunningham was driving them back to Soriano’s home when the crash occurred.
Edgar Martinez said he didn’t remember the collision itself, but opened his eyes and noticed “emergency lights around the scene.
“My next memory was firefighters using the jaws of life on my side of the vehicle,” Edgar Martinez said. “I remember they put a sheet over my friend Darrell’s head.”
Soriano was slumped over in the front passenger seat, unresponsive, he said.
Edgar Martinez was hospitalized for a month with injuries that included a broken right femur, broken right forearm and fractures to his sacrum and skull. His injuries required three surgeries and months of physical therapy.
Lujan testified that she could not remember the crash itself, but had six surgeries in the two weeks that followed, including operations on her back, collarbone and face.
Olivarez, who was in a wheelchair, was helped into and out of the courtroom by deputies.
Cunningham was a five-year veteran of the LAPD who worked out of the West Valley Station, then-Chief Michel Moore said. He left behind his fiancée and two sons.