Driver accused in fatal Metro bus crash had multiple drug arrests but spent little time in jail, records show

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Set us as preferred It looked like another afternoon commute at the bustling intersection of De Soto Avenue and Nordhoff Street Tuesday when Metro Bus Line 166 crossed into the intersection.Cars in opposing traffic lanes were stopped.Suddenly, a 2004 Ford Expedition barreled into the intersection from the wrong direction at a high rate of speed, slamming into the middle of the bus.

The impact was so powerful it hurled a passenger onto the street and lodged the front of the SUV into the bus’ frame.There were no signs the driver braked in the moments before the collision, video footage of the incident shows.The crash began an evening of death in Chatsworth.

Two passengers aboard the bus were killed and six others were hurt.It was a big story—one that drew TV news helicopters.

About two hours after the crash, an NBC4 helicopter covering the incident suddenly fell from the sky and burst into flames a few blocks away.A journalist and pilot on board and a bystander on the ground were killed.The driver of the Expedition, Bailee Lynn Rios was charged on Thursday with reckless driving, driving under the influence and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of 46-year-old Daniel Castillo and 31-year-old Gage Weida, who was ejected from the bus in the crash.

Rios was not charged in connection with the helicopter crash.Court records and interviews paint a picture of Rios as a woman who has long struggled with drug addiction.

She was arrested several times but was never sentenced to jail time, Ventura County Superior Court records show.Instead, she was given probation and ordered to go into drug treatment programs on at least three occasions, records show.

Diversion programs for drug offenses were not unusual at the time under Proposition 47, which passed in 2014 and reclassified simple possession of controlled substances...