SANTA ANA – A 43-year-old woman was charged Wednesday with a hit-and- run collision that killed a bicyclist and injured two others in Huntington Beach.
Amber Kristine Calderon was charged with a count of hit-and-run with permanent and serious injury and two counts of failing to stop at a hit-and-run collision with injury or death, all felonies. Calderon did not enter a plea at her arraignment in the jail courtroom in Santa Ana Wednesday, and the hearing was rescheduled for Nov. 13 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.
Police were called just after 6:45 a.m. Monday to Pacific Coast Highway and Newland Street, where the three cyclists were struck by a vehicle, authorities said.
Eric John Williams, 45, of Garden Grove, was pronounced dead at the scene and two other bicyclists were taken to hospitals to be treated for significant injuries, police said.
According to a GoFundMe post from Williams’ family, Williams was a founder of Community Church of West Garden Grove and also a youth teaching pastor at Seaside Community Church. He had just celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary with his wife and was a father of three daughters and a son.
Calderon was driving a 2006 Mercedes E-Class car that struck the bicyclists, who were in a bike lane, and she kept driving for about half a mile before stopping, authorities said.
Calderon was southbound on Pacific Coast Highway north of Newland when she drove on the shoulder and struck the bicyclists, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office alleged.
The two bicyclists who survived sustained injuries such as spinal fractures, broken ribs and a broken ankle, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged that Calderon kept driving on a flat tire to a beach parking lot at Magnolia Street, going through a kiosk as a parking attendant tried to stop her and a witness to the fatal collision blocked her path.
Authorities were awaiting toxicology tests, prosecutors said.
Calderon has a criminal history of misdemeanor petty theft in 2009, felony sale or transport of a controlled substance in 2011, and misdemeanor burglary in 2012, according to court records.
