GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Charges were filed Thursday in the Lombardi Avenue crash that left three people dead last month.
Abdi Ahmed, 22, is charged with three counts of second-degree reckless homicide.
The criminal complaint shows Ahmed was driving 104 miles per hour 1.2 seconds before the airbag deployed in his Dodge Charger.
Data from the airbag computer module also shows the brake was engaged only 1.1 seconds before the airbag went off. The data shows the car was traveling 84 miles per hour the tenth of a second before the airbag deployed.
Jessie L. Saldana, 28, Sonia D. Gonzalez-Guillen, 27, and Sonia V. Gonzalez, 57, were killed in the crash.
Family members of those victims spoke during a virtual court appearance Thursday afternoon.
Ahmed was emotional listening to Saldana’s mother, who spoke over the phone. Her name, along with other relatives who spoke, was not given.
“He tore my heart apart,” Saldana’s mother told the court. “He tore all our family apart. Right now everything to us is darkness.”
Police say the victims’ vehicle was turning left when Ahmed t-boned them, rolling the vehicle several times.
“He knew what he was going to do when he got behind that wheel with that speed,” said Saldana’s mother. “He knew he could have harmed and killed somebody and he did.”
According to the complaint, an uninjured Ahmed told police on scene he was only going 35 miles per hour.
Prosecutors say eight days before the crash, there was a complaint for a vehicle matching Ahmed’s driving 90 miles per hour at night without its lights on. It is one of six complaints this year alone for speeding or reckless driving. Two were in Green Bay Police jurisdiction.
“We encourage people to call if they see it,” said Lt. Rick Belanger, of the Green Bay Police Department, while speaking about reckless drivers.
Belanger says protocol for a reckless driving complaint is first check if the caller has a license plate, direction the vehicle is headed, and if they’re able to safely follow the vehicle. A call is then put out to see if there are any officers in the area. The goal is to track down the driver right away, but if that can’t be done, officers are supposed to try to follow up if they have the information to do so and if the act is egregious.
FOX 11 asked Belanger if he believes there was any way to prevent the tragedy considering the protocol and how the department followed up on the complaints.
“It’s really hard to say In a tragic case like this, I think we do whatever we can to affect some kind of corrective action with the behavior that led us to the contact. Meaning if someone calls in with a real egregious reckless driving, crossing the centerline, passing on the gravel, driving speeds that are totally not safe, the best we can do is give him a reckless driving ticket or operating left of center or operating off the roadway kind of thing.”
Green Bay Municipal Court records show Ahmed was cited for at least three different traffic violations since September. The citations include disorderly conduct with a motor vehicle, zone and posted limits, and failure to obey sign or signal.
Ahmed faces up to 25 years in prison for all three reckless murder charges.
He is being held in Brown County Jail on a $100,000 cash bond. He is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on July 14th.
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