Law enforcement authorities are trying to sort out details of a crash in California’s Central Valley that killed two California Highway Patrol officers. The two killed were Brian Law and Juan Gonzalez.
On Monday, investigators spoke of a sequence of different events, but stressed that the investigation was far from over.
At about 6 a.m. Monday morning Law and Gonzalez received calls on their radio about a collision on northbound 99. When the two approached that accident scene headed south, they discovered the accident was actually in the southbound lane on their side and blocking lanes. They also noticed a pedestrian outside one vehicle.
The officers took an evasive action in order to avoiding striking the parties from the accident, lost control of their vehicle, struck a guardrail and crashed severely. The CHP vehicle did not strike any other vehicles before or after hitting the guardrail.
Officials from CHP said both of the officers died instantly.
The commissioner of the CHP Joe Farrow said his officials were trying to determine the reason the officers had crashed.
Farrow said they are still uncertain if the two officers thought the crash had been down the road further, as they came upon the scene they lost control and hit the guardrail and road sign.
Law and Gonzalez were in the highway patrol academy together and ended up as close friends after spending the 27 weeks together in class. After their graduation in 2008, they went to different offices on assignment, but in 2013, they became reunited and worked the graveyard shift in Fresno.
Gonzalez was single but discussing marriage, while Law was married with three children.
Although, the officials are still investigating the accident, detail started to emerge late in the afternoon on Monday.
A reconstruction team at the crash scene was present for most of Monday, with all of the southbound lanes closed for a number of hours.
Officers from CHP will meet with members of the families of the victims. The CHP also announced it would be releasing any new information about the crash and what transpired, as soon as they had it.