2-year prison term for hit-and-run driver in deadly Fresno County road rage crash

The impact of the road rage collision killed 25-year-old Jesus Gonzalez while the other driver, Rosalio Galindo, just drove away.

Tuesday, July 12, 2022
2-year prison term for driver in deadly Fresno County road rage crash
A North Fork man who left the scene after a deadly road rage collision on Friant Road two years ago is now headed to prison for a hit-and-run conviction.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A North Fork man who left the scene after a deadly road rage collision on Friant Road two years ago is now headed to prison for a hit-and-run conviction.



The upside-down and badly damaged Mustang along Friant Road hinted at the violence leading up to a deadly collision.



"There's this road rage thing and it culminates and there's contact between vehicles," defense attorney Dan Martin said.



The Mustang veered into oncoming traffic and flipped.



The impact ejected 25-year-old Jesus Gonzalez from the driver's seat and he died while the other driver, Rosalio Galindo, just drove away.



RELATED: Man killed, multiple passengers hospitalized after car crash in Fresno County



Martin said Galindo is intellectually slow to begin with, but he was also scared of the two men in the other car.



"He doesn't know what to do," Martin said. "Does he get out and then fight the two guys on the side of the road? He didn't see the accident."



Galindo called his mother and eventually returned to the scene of the crash.



The view was very different from the Mustang, where Gonzalez's two daughters were among four survivors.



Two years later, the young girls wrote letters to tell a judge about their dad.



One of them stood nearby, crying, while her aunt gave their perspective on the crash.



"All I remember is that the car was flipped over and my dad and sister were on the floor," Rebecca Garcia said, reading one of the letters from the girls. "When I found out my dad died, I couldn't stop crying at the hospital.



The girls wrote about how their dad took them to see ducks and to jump on trampolines and how much they loved him and they miss him.



One of them suffered a broken neck and still lives with lingering injuries now as a 9-year-old.



She's healing physically, but the whole family suffered irreversible emotional damage.



"My mom has a broken heart that I don't think will ever heal," Garcia said. "And as to my sisters and I, and his daughters, they're not the same any more. The same happy kids they used to be."



The judge sentenced Galindo to a two-year prison term, but he'll likely be out within a year.



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