A 62-year-old security guard is dead, and his colleague seriously injured, after a teen crashed his truck into the security booth of a gated community late Friday night, and the teen driver is facing vehicular manslaughter charges.
KRON4 has a tragic report from a private gated community in Discovery Bay called The Lakes, as on Friday night, a driver who is a minor crashed his truck into the community's front security booth, and killed a 63-year-old security guard. The crash also seriously injured another guard who was in the booth at the time, and the 17-year-old driver has been arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter.
The Contra Costa County Coroner’s Office has identified the security guard who was killed as 62-year-old Rene Bucaro of Oakley.
KPIX has dashcam video of the crash taken by a Tesla that was driving by in the video segment below. The teen driver’s Hyundai Santa Cruz truck can be seen barreling at a high speed while driving on a traffic divider island for a distance that police estimate was more than 50 yards. The truck then rams into the security booth, with pretty much the whole truck ending up inside the booth.
"I think I heard the two guards yelling stop, stop, stop because they had seen the car coming towards them, right before the impact," eyewitness Paul Singh told KPIX.
KPIX also adds that while the driver was a minor, the 17-year-old did have a provisional license. That teen was also injured, but has since been released from the hospital and detained at the Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall. Drivers with provisional licenses are not permitted to drive after 11 pm, and the crash happened at 11:56 pm Friday night.
Police said alcohol did not appear to be a factor.
Oddly, residents at The Lakes say this is at least the third time in the last two years that cars have hit that security booth structure.
Friends speak fondly of the guard Bucaro who was killed. Sadly, he was not scheduled to work Friday night, but took the shift to fill in for another guard.
"He's a hard worker and has always tried to better himself. Very unfortunate that he would come to his second job and I don't think he was even supposed to be here," said Pastor Marcus Burns of Bethlehem Temple Church, where Bucaro was a parishioner.
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the California Highway Patrol’s Contra Costa Area office at (925)-646-4980.
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Image: Police tape stretching across a road in front of a crime scene.