A 27-year-old man is scheduled to enter pleas to murder and other charges on Thursday, April 3, that were filed in connection with the death of a motorist in a collision at the end of a police pursuit in Chino.
The crash killed 27-year-old Clarissa Cano of Chino, who was driving a car that was struck near Mountain Avenue and Walnut Street on March 27, said Cpl. Joshua Luster, a spokesman for the Ontario Police Department.
“The lady never knew what hit her,” San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said in an interview Wednesday.
Tylin Eugene Dixon was charged with murder, felony evading causing injury or death and taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, San Bernardino County court records show. The case is being heard in Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga.
The collision happened after 9:30 a.m. An automated license plate reader alerted police to the presence of a reported stolen car. Officers found the car near Mountain Avenue and Holt Boulevard, and when they tried to pull it over, the driver sped off, Luster said.
The pursuit lasted about 2 minutes, Luster said, before Dixon’s car struck Cano’s. Neither car had any passengers.
Anderson said several factors prompted him to file a second-degree murder charge, which carries a longer prison sentence than another option such as vehicular manslaughter.
In the pursuit that spanned a half mile to a mile, Dixon drove in the opposite lane of traffic at 75 mph to 85 mph and almost hit nine other motorists head-on until he ran a red light and broadsided Cano’s car on the driver’s side, Anderson said.
“That’s how reckless he was driving,” Anderson said. “At what point do you just not care about the life of somebody else?
Also, investigators believe Dixon may have been driving under the influence, Anderson said, although Dixon had not been charged with that as of Wednesday.
And Anderson said he factored in Dixon’s three burglary convictions. Anderson said he believes Dixon stole the car he was driving in the course of burglarizing a home.