Driver held without bail and convicted of second-degree murder
EARLIER this month, a young Filipino boy was killed while riding a bicycle with his father by a suspected drunk driver in Costa Mesa, California.
The tragedy occurred on Sunday, Dec. 6 around 6 p.m. on Arlington Drive near Juniper Drive when 12-year-old Noel Bascon and his father were biking near the intersection.
According to police, a man driving a rented F-150 pickup truck ran past a stop sign and fatally collided with the boy.
The driver was 59-year-old Richard Lavalle of Long Beach who police investigators said had a prior DUI charge in 2013. Authorities alleged that Lavalle was intoxicated when he crashed into Noel.
In an interview with NBC4, Noel’s mother Eleanor Bascon said that her husband witnessed the crash. He had tried to get the driver’s attention to get him to stop but Lavalle didn’t see; Bascon’s husband called her immediately from the scene.
NBC4 reported that Noel was a 7th grader “who loved gummy candy and going to the beach,” and was excited to be going back to school, the mother said.
“He’s a sweet, smiling, happy, energetic boy. He loves being outdoors in the parks,” she said, adding that Noel was “just an innocent boy enjoying a bike ride, and he never came home.”
A GoFundMe was set up to help the family with funeral and memorial expenses. As of press time, the fundraiser has exceeded its $10,000 goal, but donations are still being accepted to help the family during this difficult time.
Bascon (whose Filipino heritage was confirmed to the Asian Journal last week by the fundraising host) and her husband both work in the medical field, and she said that they both have been witnessed to family tragedies throughout the pandemic.
The mother also noted that she and her daughter would have joined the father and son on the bike ride, as they often did as a family, but they stayed home to wrap Christmas presents. She said that she hopes Lavalle will be served justice for killing her son.
“He’s a menace to society. He needs to be locked up for life so he doesn’t do this to anybody else again,” she told NBC4.
Lavalle was arrested on the scene and charged with second-degree murder on Tuesday, Dec. 8. Lavalle was previously convicted of driving under the influence in San Diego County in 2013, which upgraded his charge from manslaughter to murder, per the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
A passenger of the F-150, 56-year-old Lee Anna Diaz Murphy of Artesia, was also booked on suspicion of possession of unlawful drug paraphernalia and controlled substances, Orange County police said.
A former convict, Lavalle was also convicted in August 2009 of armed bank robbery in federal court and was sentenced to 35 months in federal prison in April 2010, court records showed. He returned to prison to serve one more year after he violated supervised release in 2013,and according to court records, in 2018, he was also convicted of robbery in Los Angeles County.
If convicted of murder for Noel’s death, Lavalle faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life.
In California, law enforcement are required to give drivers convicted of DUIs a “Watson advisement,” which “informs them that if they kill someone while driving under the influence, they can be charged them of murder,” according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
“The unimaginable pain that this family is being forced to endure because of a selfish decision of a stranger is unconscionable,” Spitzer said in a statement released on Dec. 8. “Now another innocent child has paid the price for someone else’s selfish decision. I am sick and tired of my prosecutors having to go to court to file murder charges against repeat drunk and drugged drivers who have been warned about the consequences — multiple times.”
He added, “Taking a Sunday bike ride with your dad shouldn’t equate to a death sentence.” (By Klarize Medenilla/AJPress)
