Indian American charged with murder in the car-ramming crash that killed 3 teens

Anurag Chandra, 42, of Corona City in California, was arrested in the car-ramming deaths of three 16-year-old boys and injuries to three others on Sunday, January 19.

He remained in custody without bail Tuesday at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside, the Press-Enterprise reported.

Daniel Hawkins, 16, of Corona; Drake Ruiz, 16, of Corona; and Jacob Ivascu, 16, of Riverside, died late Sunday night when Chandra intentionally rammed their Toyota Prius with his Infiniti car, according to police.

The police would not comment why they believe the boys were chased and rammed by Chandra in his white Infiniti, the PE report said. The force of the collision sent the Prius into a tree at Temescal Canyon Road and Trilogy Parkway.

Witnesses told the officers about the Infiniti they saw ram the Prius and flee, with front-end damage, and where it was parked. Chandra was arrested less than a mile from the crash scene.

Ruiz’s mother told reporters the teens, who were on their way to a sleepover to celebrate Ivascu’s birthday, tried to play a ‘ding-dong-ditch’ prank — ringing a doorbell and quickly driving away — at a friend’s home, but Chandra answered the door, got into his Infiniti and chased the teens.

‘The boys were playing ding-dong-ditch at a house they thought was … somebody their age, but it turned out to be that angry man,’ Debbie Ruiz said.
She said when the suspect began chasing them, they fled for their lives. ‘He rammed them, ran them off the road.’

Chandra already faces misdemeanor charges of spousal abuse and willful injury to a child, court records show.