Driver Who Killed Bicyclist in Hit-Run Gets 2 Years in Prison

A Wilmington man who pleaded guilty last month to felony hit-and-run driving for striking and killing a bicyclist on Hawthorne Boulevard was sentenced Friday to two years in state prison.

John Tupeona Tago, 27, quietly stared in front of him as relatives of the bicyclist he killed told Torrance Superior Court Judge George Perkovich that the sentence was too short.

Tago, who will be eligible for parole in one year, agreed to accept the two-year term in return for his guilty plea to one count of felony hit-and-run involving a death and one count of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. The maximum term he faced was three years.

According to police who investigated the March 24 accident, Tago ran a red light at 5:20 a.m. as he drove southbound on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance, broadsiding 24-year-old Jorge Rodelo, who was riding a bicycle westbound on Lomita Boulevard.

Rodelo was dragged under the car for more than 100 feet, severing one of his legs; bicycle and car parts were strewn along the street. Witnesses told police that Tago continued on for more than a quarter of a mile before he pulled over, removed Rodelo’s bicycle from the front of his car and sped away.

Police did not arrest Tago until June, when an alert Lomita sheriff’s deputy noticed that a gap in the grillwork on Tago’s car matched grillwork found at the accident scene.

According to a probation report, Tago said that he did not see Rodelo but that he soon realized that he had hit someone.

“I didn’t see the guy on the bike, but I remember the car hitting something,” Tago told the probation officer. “I was just scared. I was probably going 30 or 40 miles an hour, about the regular speed limit. . . . I don’t think I ran a red light, but I was hurrying to get home.”

Tago said he later called Torrance Memorial Medical Center to try to find out what happened to the bicyclist but could not get any information.

Tago’s parents said their son is a caring man. “I’m sorry we can’t bring the life back,” Tago’s mother, Foyfua Tago, said after the sentencing.

Rodelo’s brother, Jesus, told Perkovich through an interpreter that his brother--formerly a schoolteacher in Mexicali, Mexico, and a recent immigrant to the United States--had been working two jobs while he took English classes to prepare to teach school here.

“We trust the laws of the United States to punish (Tago) according to the gravity of the accident,” Jesus Rodelo said. “But the time that they’re giving him for this is just too little.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Sitkoff told Perkovich he believes the state-mandated penalties for Tago’s crimes are inadequate.

“It’s the Legislature’s fault that this case has resulted in such a low sentence,” Sitkoff said. “I believe the law is too lenient for what has happened to this victim and to this family.”

Sitkoff said afterward that he believes the maximum penalty for hit-and-run driving involving a death should be six years, the same as that for felony gross vehicular manslaughter.

“Anybody who has touched this case realizes the horribleness of it,” Sitkoff said. “Nothing is going to bring (Rodelo) back, but it sure seems light, doesn’t it?”