'This Is Not An Accident' | Family Of Teen Killed In Baltimore County Blames Street Racing; Police Say Suspect Traveling 116 MPH
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (WJZ) -- Video taken from a home security camera Memorial Day weekend shows the last time Lexi Friedlander saw her brother Zach, and the family's beloved black lab Shadow, alive.
"He asked me if I wanted to take Shadow with him," she said. "Then he said, 'I love you.' I said, 'I love you, too.'"
Minutes later on May 24, 2019, Zach was killed in a terrible crash as he turned onto Dolfield Boulevard from Mill Centre Drive in Owings Mills.
Another car plowed into his Hyundai. Shadow went flying out of the back window.
"He was hit so violently in that intersection that the car spun after it got hit probably five or six times – 300 feet it was pushed down the road," Arnold Friedlander, Zach's father, told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. "It was so violent, that they were both probably killed pretty much instantly."
Zach's sister said he died just three weeks before his 20th birthday.
"I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone," she said. "It would be one thing if it was truly an accident, but this is not an accident."
What the family later learned left them stunned. From the police report, the driver who hit Zach, Adrian Carrillo, was traveling 116 miles an hour at the time of the crash. The speed limit in that area is 35.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren: They could tell how fast [Carrillo] was going?
Arnold Friedlander: They pulled the black boxes out of the cars, and most people don't realize this, but all the modern cars have black boxes that tell when you hit the brakes, how fast you were going when you stopped last.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren: 116 miles per hour?
Arnold Friedlander: Right.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren: In a 35 mile per hour zone?
Arnold Friedlander: Correct.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren: In a residential neighborhood?
Arnold Friedlander: Correct. He got t-boned. T-boned in the side door at 116... As soon as he saw it, it was over. It was that quick. The distance was that short.
According to the police report, Carrillo, who was 18 at the time of the crash, said a friend was following him in another car. He denied the two were racing.
Carrillo estimated he was traveling 50 to 55 miles per hour and told police Friedlander's lights were off and that he did not see him.
Police later determined the lights were working.
Multiple witnesses told police Carrillo was racing, according to the police report.
The Friedlander family says those who live in the area have repeatedly complained about drag races there.
"Looking at the report, somebody pulled out in front of his buddy, and his buddy had to slow down," Lexi said. "I was told by a friend who lives in those condos that the racing continued even after my brother was killed. Like the next week. That is not a track. It's a residential street where families live."
Carrillo now faces six charges. The most serious is negligent manslaughter by auto, which carries a 10-year maximum sentence.
Lexi Friedlander: He has no criminal record, so we've already been told he will likely not serve more than 18 months.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren: Are you shocked by that?
Lexi Friedlander: Yes. It makes me sick. Because what's the value of human life. For us, it was two lives. Shadow was a person to us. And he was a person to Zach. And they were taken from us.
Arnold Friedlander: The way the laws are now, Shadow doesn't even count in the whole process. Whether it's insurance, whether it's laws, the dog does not even come into that, but he was another son.
Drag racing has been a problem in Baltimore County; a two-day sting last year netted almost 100 citations. This year, the county has seen at least three racing-related deaths.
Md. State Police Shut Down Illegal Street Racing in Baltimore Co.
Carrillo is free on bail. WJZ reached out to him and an attorney listed in court records but have not heard back.