This week, a 17-year-old from Los Angeles was shot dead in Palmdale, California. In 2021, he hit a mother pushing her baby in a stroller and got only a few months of "diversionary camp" for his crime.
Last year, Kristopher Baca pleaded guilty to the hit-and-run. Because he was young, Fox News Digital had not named him before.
On Friday, the office of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed that he had died, but said that the autopsy was still being done.
The whole hit-and-run in Venice, California, on August 6, 2021, was caught on surveillance video. During an early release hearing for the teen driver in June 2022, the woman who was hurt slammed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.
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The sheriff's office says that deputies found him dead in a Palmdale driveway on the 83600 block of 11th Street East on Wednesday evening. He had been shot.
Sources close to the investigation said that he had been trying to "get with a girl" at a fast food restaurant earlier.
As he walked home by himself, a car pulled up next to him, and a fight started. Someone in the car fired and then drove away quickly.
This kid would still be alive and in jail if George Gascon had done his job.
The young mother, who only wanted to be called Rachel, moved her family out of Los Angeles because of what she called "soft-on-crime" policies.
She told Fox News Digital on Friday that when she heard the news, her husband was out of town, so she had to think about it by herself. She said that the news made her both happy and sad.
"The universe gave him the justice we didn't get in court, but it was a lot worse than what he would have gotten in court," she said.
Last year, the case made headlines all over the country when the office of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon asked for a five- to seven-month sentence in a juvenile probation camp. This is a punishment for young offenders that is less harsh than military school but more severe than summer camp.
At the time, Gascon's office told Fox News Digital that the sentence was "a good way to end things." Friday, a request for a comment was not answered right away by a spokesperson.
The wrong-way driver hit a woman and her 8-month-old child, then hit a pickup truck.
At the time of the hit-and-run, which was on August 6, 2021, the teen was already on felony probation for poisoning a high school girl's drink.
The video shows a stolen car speeding down a one-way backstreet the wrong way. It hit a woman who was pushing her baby son in a stroller. Then he hit the gas and sped away from the scene, where a good Samaritan in a pickup truck hit the suspect's car head-on.
Fox News got a copy of the incident report and it says that when the Los Angeles police arrived, they found drugs in the driver's system and marijuana in the car.
The suspect was 15 when he hit and ran, and he asked the court to let him out of his light sentence early. The judge said no, but the young man died before he turned 18.
Rachel said, "I think I feel cheated by the system because they didn't hold him accountable. I also feel a little sad, not for him, but for his mom, because if George Gascon had done his job, this kid would still be alive and in jail."