Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Man pays maximum penalty for fatal crash

He gets 60 years in prison for eluding Temple Terrace police and crashing into a Tampa family's car.

By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published October 7, 2005

TAMPA - A Hillsborough judge sentenced a Tampa man to 60 years in prison months after he led police on a chase across the city that left one dead and two injured.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta said Dwayne D. Brown, 28, will pay the highest price for plowing into a Tampa family near the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Armenia Avenue on Jan. 5.

"There is no doubt in my mind that you are a danger to the citizens of this county and that you deserve the maximum penalty," Ficarrotta said.

But 60 years is not enough as far as Odalis Galindo is concerned.

Galindo, her brother-in-law, George Galindo, 50, and his brother Jesus Santos were driving home from a hospital when Brown ran a stoplight and crashed into their Buick. George Galindo died from his injuries. Now Odalis Galindo worries Brown will get behind the wheel again someday.

Last week, a jury found Brown guilty of vehicular homicide and fleeing and eluding law enforcement officers at a high speed. Witnesses said Brown drove recklessly when he led a Temple Terrace police officer on a chase after the officer followed Brown's 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse. The officer signaled for Brown to stop near Busch Boulevard and 56th Street when he noticed two infractions. But Brown sped through a parking lot, cut off his lights and drove down 56th Street, witnesses testified.

Brown then drove north in the middle of two southbound lanes, prompting police to give chase. Two officers were forced off the road when Brown sped toward their cruisers at an estimated 60 to 70 mph.

The chase lasted a little more than 20 minutes before it came to a crashing halt when Brown ran a red light at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and slammed into the Buick. Brown tried to run from the accident but police caught him.

It was not Brown's first run-in with the law. In March 1998, he was sentenced to five years and three months in prison on manslaughter charges. In the same year, he was sentenced to 19 months in prison for a January 1998 case that involved a stolen car and a police chase.

Brown apologized to Galindo's family Thursday, repeating his earlier assertion that he fled from police because he was worried they would harm him and his wife, who was in the car "I didn't mean to hurt nobody and I'm sorry and I ask y'all to forgive me," Brown said. "I'm just a working family man. I turned my whole life around. I didn't mean for this to happen."

The judge didn't buy it. Ficarrotta said Brown's excuse was "flimsy" at best. He turned to Galindo's family and apologized for not being able to do more for them.

"I wish there was something I could do to make your family whole," Ficarrotta said. "I don't have the power to do that, but I do have the power to punish this young man."

Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 813 226-3337 or rondeaux@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 7, 2005, 11:47:57]