OAKLAND, Calif. — There was conflict Sunday evening over whether a man killed in a motorcycle crash on Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland that morning was the victim of road rage.
Friends told KTVU that at 1:35 a.m. Sunday, 35-year-old Jose Curiel was on his bike headed home on southbound I-880 to San Lorenzo when he crashed around near 98th Avenue exit.
Despite efforts to revive him, Curiel died at the scene.
CHP officers later reported that there were several crashes in the area around the same time as Curiel’s, one of which included a car on fire, but Curiel was the only fatality..
Southbound Highway 880 was closed until about 3:25 a.m. as the CHP investigated and cleared the crash.
A member of the Miscreants motorcycle club, Curiel’s friend Fernando Camilli said he worked at a Harley Davidson dealer in Oakland and had a wife and four children.
Camilli said rushed to the scene shortly after Curiel had crashed.
“It was just tragic,” said Camilli. “He's not just our club brother, he's someone's father, he's someone's husband, he's someone's provider.
Officers later that morning arrested two men on DUI charges, including one driving the truck that hit Curiel.
“We can definitely point to ‘Road Rage’ as the instigator for this particular incident,” said CHP Ofc. Daniel Hill, though he added that investigators did not know the exact nature of the confrontation.
“It's likely that the alcohol magnified what would've have been a regular road rage incident. When you involve alcohol in any traffic collision, it always make it that much worse,” said Hill.
But hours after the crash, a friend of Curiel who told KTVU that he was riding with him at the time of the accident said he and Curiel were not involved any confrontation on the road, adding that they were trying to avoid a crash that already happened.
As other bikers came together to express their sympathy Sunday, Curiel's friends were saying that they wanted to know more about what happened.
“We told ourselves, it could've been any of us in that pack,” said Camilli.
Later Sunday, flowers were posted in the fence along the 98th Avenue overpass.
The CHP says 30 year old Angel Solorzano of Newark faces felony DUI and possible vehicular manslaughter charges.
The crash was the third involving a motorcycle on I-880 in less than four days. The first occurred Thursday and resulted in the death of 37-year-old longshoreman Troy Janssen. The second crash saw a man seriously injured near the Broadway exit Saturday.
The California Highway Patrol said Sunday that between 1998 and 2008, motorcycle fatalities jumped 175 percent.
Authorities say deaths did decrease in 2009 and 2010 but crept back up again in 2011.
A federal report showed that for the same per-mile exposure, motorcyclists are about 128 times more likely to die than occupants of other vehicles.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/friends-chp-disagree-over-bikers-death-due-road-ra/nZx4Q/