MILPITAS â An afternoon that started with a fun bike ride ended in unimaginable tragedy for a Milpitas family when 7-year-old Haolan Chen, a bright young boy who loved math and puzzles, was struck and killed by a speeding stolen car driven by a woman authorities believe was likely trying to evade police.
Hanhong Chen, the boyâs father, said he still canât accept that his son is gone.
âItâs a devastating experience, I donât know how to handle this,â Chen said Wednesday afternoon in an interview. âI donât know how to describe my feelings. Itâs like a dream, itâs not real.â
Chen and his wife have spent the days since their sonâs death 10 days ago in disbelief, trying to support each other and their daughter, and beginning the unthinkable task of planning their young sonâs funeral.
Jan. 18 was a summerlike day in Milpitas, with the temperature reaching 77 degrees. Chen was out for a bike ride around the neighborhood with his son Haolan and his 10-year-old daughter, something they did often to stay active.
Chen said they were about a block from home when they came to the four-way stop at the intersection of Kennedy Drive and North Park Victoria Drive. All three stopped their bikes at the corner.
âI saw the junction was clear, no cars,â Chen said. All three began crossing the street on their bikes along a yellow-painted crosswalk, with his daughter in front, Haolan in the middle, and Chen about half a bike length behind him. Then suddenly they saw a white Lexus ripping down the street.
âThe car just didnât stop, they were just speeding through the junction,â Chen said.
Surveillance video from a nearby home viewed by this news organization shows the Chen family pedaling across the northbound lanes of Park Victoria to the southbound lanes, while a Milpitas police SUV rolls across in the opposite direction, crossing in front of northbound Park Victoria lanes.
The Lexus, which police said was driven at the time by 36-year-old Kristalinna Pacheco of San Jose, veered from the northbound side of traffic over to the southbound lanes, striking Haolan and narrowly missing Chenâs daughter, before continuing down the road.
âLuckily my daughter didnât get hit as well. My son was hit badly, and I was hit in the front tire. I was knocked off my bike,â Chen said, pointing to an injury on his left hand.
Based on surveillance video of the incident, police estimated the Lexus was traveling around 50 mph just before it hit Haolan, according to a police investigative summary submitted to prosecutors.
âIt really is a murder, basically,â Chen said.
Eric Tieu, 20, lives nearby. He heard the collision, which sounded like and at first thought it was a car colliding with another car, which is common at that intersection, he said.
But when he went outside and saw the bike on the street, and a police officer performing CPR on Haolan, he knew it was very serious.
âThat was tragic. That broke my heart,â Tieu said.
Chenâs sister ran to her home to get her mother, passing by Tieuâs home.
âShe was screaming, âMom, mom, mom.â My heart just kind of sunk for a second,â Tieu said. âLike what the f*** just happened.â
Milpitas police say the Lexus was reported stolen from San Jose and had allegedly been used as part of an armed robbery there on Jan. 6.
Police said in a press release that one officer spotted the stolen car driving west on East Calaveras Boulevard around 3:22 p.m. on Jan. 18, and another officer was also in the area.
âWeâre basically presuming that vehicle saw the police cars in the area and then fled at a high rate of speed on North Park Victoria because the police cars at no point attempted to pursue the vehicle,â Lt. Tyler Jamison said Thursday in an interview.
The police summary obtained by this news organization said officers were alerted that the Lexus was in the area when it was scanned by a license plate reader, and one officer saw the car just a few cars ahead of him on East Calaveras, when traffic wasnât moving.
While the officer and others nearby were formulating a plan to lay spike strips in the road ahead of the car in case it fled, police said the Lexus cut through a gas station parking lot to get onto Park Victoria and took off.
âIt appeared as though the occupants of the Lexus got âspookedâ and were attempting to flee the area,â police said in their account.
Though police said they werenât pursuing the Lexus, and did not activate their lights and sirens to try and pull the car over, two police cars were following the Lexus, about eight seconds behind it, according to a portion of the surveillance video.
Two officers stopped to provide aid to Haolan, while another officer went after the Lexus, according to police.
Nearly a mile north of where Haolan was struck, police said an officer found the Lexus stopped near the intersection of North Park Victoria and Nicklaus Avenue, and both the woman and a man seen by police earlier in the passenger seat were running from the car.
Pacheco stopped when confronted and was held at gunpoint by police for a âshort while,â and was taken into custody, though the man ran back to the Lexus and drove away from the scene, police said.
Police pursued the car into Fremont on Interstate 680 for about three minutes and then called off the chase when they lost sight of the car, but it was located abandoned in Newark the next day. The man who fled is still at large.
Pacheco has since been charged with the murder of Haolan by the Santa Clara County District Attorneyâs Office, and was set to be arraigned in court Friday.
Chen and his family, meanwhile, are being supported with food, visits, and calls from neighbors, teachers, and family and friends, but are struggling to figure out how to move forward without Haolan.
Standing on his doorstep Wednesday in the pouring rain, Chen said his family feels like Haolan is still there with them.
âHis smile, his voice, itâs still around,â Chen said. âI still cannot accept his death.â
Chen said Haolan was âvery sweetâ and sociable with other children from Merryhill Elementary and Middle school.
Storm weathered candles, balloons, toys, stuffed animals and colorful wreaths still adorned the median strip this week where he was killed.
âI thought he will maybe one day achieve something higher than us,â Chen said of his son, while beginning to cry.
âBecause he is so good, so smart. Such a lovely kid.â