Teen seriously injured after alleged street race crash

What began as a typical Thursday for 14-year-old Christopher Hopkins took a terrifying turn after another teen, who was allegedly street racing, slammed into Hopkins' grandparent's car while they were driving home from school, sending six people to the hospital.

A subsequent call from a trauma nurse at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital was one that Christopher Hopkins' father, James Hopkins, never expected to receive.

“I just panicked. I immediately dropped everything and went to the hospital,” said James Hopkins, 44, who was at work when he received the news that his son was critically injured.

Christopher Hopkins, a freshman at Casa Grande High School, normally takes the bus home from school, and his father was unaware that his son had been picked up by his mother's parents that Thursday. The three were half of a block from the Hopkins home when a BMW 335I that was racing another car along Sonoma Mountain Parkway slammed into their Mercury Grand Marquis at speeds of up to 80 miles an hour, Petaluma Police Lt. Tim Lyons said.

A second driver of a gray or black Subaru WRX with tinted windows didn't stop, and is still wanted by police, he said.

The driver of the BMW, a 17-year-old Casa Grande student whose name is being withheld because of his age, was arrested for charges relating to street racing causing injury and violating a provisional license. He was not injured and was no longer in custody at the county jail Tuesday, Lyons said. He has already been cited twice for traffic violations, including an April 2017 citation for speeding and violating his provisional license, Lyons said.

The suspected street racing teen knows the identity of the driver of the Subaru WRX, but is not currently cooperating with police, Lyons said.

The Christopher Hopkins' 86-year-old grandfather, who was driving at the time of the crash, is still in the hospital, Lyons said. His 71-year-old grandmother was treated for minor injuries and released. Three teenage girls, also students at Casa Grande, were in the BMW at the time of the accident and were brought to Petaluma Valley Hospital for minor injuries, Lyons said.

Christopher Hopkins' pelvis and ribs were broken, his spleen was cut and his internal organs are bruised and bleeding, his father said. He was transferred from Santa Rosa to the Oakland's Children's Hospital, where he's undergone multiple surgeries and is now in stable condition.

“He's being very stoic about it, he's not complaining much – the only real thing is that he's irritated with the constant attention and the poking and prodding,” said James Hopkins, a single father who has been by his son's side daily since the crash. “He's not really the complainer type, though. He's just going along with it and he's pretty drugged out at this point.”

Christopher Hopkins' mother, Brandy Hopkins, has also spent time with her injured parents and son since the crash, she said in an email.

He will likely remain in the hospital for weeks and will be faced with rigorous physical therapy once he's released. Doctors aren't sure if he will walk again, but they remain “very positive,” his father said.

A GoFundMe page has been created to support the Hopkins family, an effort that garnered nearly $14,000 in donations in its first two days. James Hopkins, a Petaluma native, is divorced and has been raising Christopher as a single parent for more than 12 years. The medical bills are piling up and the family will need modifications to their home to accommodate a wheelchair once Hopkins is released. Friends of James Hopkins who started the page hope to raise $25,000 to help cover costs.

In the days following the accident, James Hopkins has been struggling to come to terms with the life-changing event for his child, who he described as intelligent and bookish.

“He's a very happy and mellow kid,” he said of his son. “He's probably one of the sweetest souls I've ever known … He's very cerebral, he likes to read, he likes history and video games.”

James Hopkins hasn't spoken to the driver who crashed, interrupting his son's young life. He's too angry, he said.

“These kids were racing at 3:30 in the afternoon in an area that's by three different schools, right after school let out,” he said. “It's a busy area with bus stops and crosswalks, and it's just absolutely ridiculous that kids would race there.”

Still, Lyons said residents have complained that Sonoma Mountain Parkway, a long, flat road is a haven for speeding vehicles. Police plan to deploy speed monitors and extra patrols on the roadway, which has a 40 mph speed limit.

Since last Jan. 22 people were arrested on suspicion of exhibition of speed and speeding contests, Lyons said. They were all men between the ages of 16 and 25, he said.

“You can see that (street racing) leads to injuries,” he said. “Not only to themselves, but also the passengers and sometimes other innocent people. We hope that parents really think about giving their young adults fast performance cars.”

Questions to Casa Grande's administration were directed to Dave Rose, Petaluma City School's assistant superintendent of student services. Though he was unable to discuss specifics about students due to confidentiality issues, he said the incident should serve as a “constant reminder to youth about making positive choices.”

“We have counselors, administrators and teachers on standby looking for any indicators of severe reactions from students,” he said. “We're just trying to do rumor control and reinforce positive messaging about decision making … In the moment, they don't always apply lessons and the things they know. Emotions get the best of them and they make poor decision. Sometimes, no one gets hurt, but in this case, that's not what happened.”

(Contact Hannah Beausang at hannah.beausang@arguscourier.com.)