Comedian Tony Baker is using his grief to try to create change in honor of his late son who was killed after being caught in the middle of an apparent street race while in a car with three friends on a Southern California street this month.
Cerain Baker, 21, and two other passengers, 20-year-old Jaiden Johnson and 19-year-old Natalee Mohgaddam, were killed in the tragic accident in Burbank, California, on Aug. 3 around 11:50 p.m. when their vehicle was struck by one of the two cars involved in the street race. The collision occurred when the driver of the victims’ Volkswagon attempted to make a left-hand turn from the southbound lanes onto an east-west street but was struck by a Kia, which was traveling north at an apparently high rate of speed adjacent to a Mercedes.
According to a report released by the Burbank Police Department, speed is thought to be a factor in the crash that saw three victims “ejected from a silver Volkswagen” and pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Volkswagen was seriously injured but survived.
The driver of the Kia apparently T-boned the Volkswagen and was badly injured in the wreck, while neither occupant of the Mercedes-Benz reported any injuries.
“In my 19-year-career, I haven’t seen anything like this, personally,” Burbank Police Department Sgt. Emil Brimway told ABC7 about the crash. “Not to this magnitude and this level of debris over a two-city block span.”
The comedian has been openly sharing his grieving process with fans on social media as he and his family attempt to recover from the loss, tweeting comments like he is “Not Ok Right Now” and he is “honestly amazed that I’m actually functioning through this.” Baker is going one step further by circulating a Change.org petition because “no one else should feel this pain that we are going through.”
The petition demands that “the city takes responsibility, and criminal charges are filed for all alleged “Street Racers” involved” and proposes five immediate actions be taken immediately: “Increasing police presence/patrols in the area in the late evening (9pm-3am); Red light cameras and unmanned vehicles with radars/cameras inside; Speed limit signs that flash when you are over the speed limit; Speed bumps, and other speeding deterrents; Traffic lights need to alternate signals more often between (9pm-3am).”
The issue of street racing isn’t a new one to the community where the accident occurred, and the petition cites that residents have been complaining about it for over a decade.
At the time of this writing, the petition received over 66,000 signatures toward its 75,000 goal.
No charges have been filed in connection to the crash.
