KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The man who struck and killed 14-year-old Wyatt Savaikie at a Saugus intersection received 60 days in jail and probation Monday, officials said.
Sponsored Articles
Ralph August Steger, 75, of Canyon Country, was initially arrested for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, speeding and failing to stop at a red light, after he struck and killed Wyatt at the intersection of Bouquet Canyon and Seco Canyon roads.
Steger pleaded no contest to the three charges filed against him: vehicular manslaughter, an infraction for unsafe speed and failure to stop at a red light.
He also was obligated to comply with the following terms of his sentence:
- he complete 30 days (300 hours) of community service.
- he pay a fine of $500, plus penalties and assessments;
- Specific restitution to the victim’s family.
- he not drive unless properly licensed, insured and in physical possession of his driver’s license. At this time, the DMV has suspended his license.
- he complete the Hospital and Morgue (HAM) program; and
- he participate in up to 10 sessions of the Every 15 Minutes program. The program involves students from local high schools and is geared towards education on the topics of impaired driving and distracted driving.
Steger “unlawfully, and without malice, (killed Savaikie), a human being, while driving a vehicle in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony, but without gross negligence; and while driving a vehicle in the commission of a lawful act which might have produced death, in an unlawful manner, but without gross negligence,” according to court documents.”
The charges also say Steger failed to stop at a red light and drove at an “unsafe speed.”
Steger is due back Sept. 22 for a restitution hearing to determine the compensation Steger owes the Savaikie.
The teen’s mother, Teresa Savaikie, described Wyatt as a “gentle giant” and her “rock” in a previous story.
“He was beautiful,” she said. “We are so honored to have had the privilege of having him in our lives, as our gentle giant, our precious son.”
This is not justice.
Not sure what justice is anymore. RIP Wyatt!!!
Death penalty would be justice. ?
…”Specific restitution to the victim’s family”…
This man doesn’t have the millions and millions needed to even come close to
giving the Savaikie Family “restitution” for Wyatt.
The Judge told us Mr. Steger could get one year in jail and a $1,000. fine.
WHY was that not even given? Sad Sad Sad.
If this was my son I would want justice and the driver should give up his license to drive as he has taken a life. Someones son, grandson, neighbor, school kids see this and wonder why this is justice? I would insist my parent know longer drive and use public service bus or City pick up. He does not have to drive after speeding and killing a 14 year old son. It’s not justice if it were my son. Let the judge decide what does the laws say about this crime.
Jack,
What do think “justice” should be in this case?
The “ONLY” justice in this sentence is that Ralph WILL go to meet his maker sooner than later knowing that HE MADE a mistake and took an “innocent” child’s life. RIP Wyatt
That is such a low blow to the family. Doesn’t a life mean anything these days??? And the person who doesn’t follow the rules, gets a slap on the hand n walks? Discussing !,,
To bad that people can’t put themselves in everyone’s shoe’s. Everyone in this case (Steger) is a victim in one form or another. The man made a huge mistake. All though the sentence made be “light” to some, he has to live the rest of his life knowing what he did. Crucifying the man is not justice. Where is the balance? I’m glad I’m not the judge.
Horrible, no justice for the victim here. 60 days is a joke
Seriously this a JOKE…Ralph needs to loose everything for Taking a Child’s LIFE
That’s it? 60 days is nothing.Vehicular manslaughter when he was speeding deserves a whole lot more. Who came up with that? He killed a child with his carelessness!
Not to mention this is not his first speeding and running a red light. Google him. It was astonishing to me that his driver’s license had not been revoked before this. He didn’t seem to think it was a problem to keep speeding through red lights! I just don’t understand why the full year wasn’t given at minimum. 🙁
This is outrageous. To think that him living with it is “enough” is insane! That is assuming that he holds guilt for this action as some people do that have empathy for this man. I am a mother, and if this was my son, no amount of restitution or apologies would make up for this “mistake”. This man has lived a long life and sadly Wyatt’s was cute short, very short. 60 days is a joke, and to forgive this man because he is old is even worse! We would not be so forgiving of a teenager, yet we would say they are so young, they need to learn more. This man have lived a long life and should know better already. That judge let him off light.
While he was sentenced to 60 days he will only serve 21 (or less) due to “overcrowding.” I think a different punishment would be fair: Ban him from all motorized transportation for life. Not just driving but as a passenger as well. No planes, no trains, no buses, no cars. Spending the rest of his life afoot would give him time to contemplate his crime.
As Wyatt’s mother, I believe so many of us have become complacent to the loss of innocent pedestrians who’s lives have been cut short as though its just an accepted consequence. So many of us rushing to blame the victims instead of the dangerous, inadequately monitored roads and streets and the drivers that take advantage of them. We all know that speeding, running red-lights, failing to pull over for oncoming paramedics, driving recklessly has become so commonplace out here. So common that the DA decided to charge Mr. Steger for a misdemeanor verses a felony, not because they felt he did not commit a felony but because our communities driving habits have become so out of control that it would be nearly impossible for a full jury to find the man guilty of a felony because so many of us drive recklessly everyday, to the point where the DA felt that too many jurors could easily vision themselves killing a pedestrian. Maybe this is why so often we hear or see a knee-jerk reaction to blame the poor victim before we even know the facts. I want to thank those of you that have supported our family through this nightmare, that have come to city council meetings, court hearings, Wyatt’s Birthday Celebrations that he will never participate again, and for coming out to his Remembrance Celebration, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for helping us define and remind the DA, the judge and our community that Wyatt is more then just another number or sad statistic on a spread sheet. It is so important that we all remember that humans are being lost, their lives, their hopes and dreams lost at an instant by drivers that take advantage of our dangerous road and the inability for law enforcement to adequately monitor our streets, not because law enforcement does not want to but because all of our roads are built for cars, instead of people. Yet we sometimes think of pedestrians as a nuisance, how dare they get in our way. It is my hope and my prayer that we will soon stop calling every pedestrian life taken an accident because so many of the incidents could be avoided. Choices are made to speed up, choices are made to run a red-light, choices are made to disobey the law and drive like Mad Max on our already dangerous roads. I pray we find another word to call these losses, wen it is proven that someone decides to drive, break multiple laws, knowing full well they are in the wrong, when they Decide to play Russian Roulette with their car, damned be anyone else that dare be in the way. While the drivers intention is not to kill, when they break the law, multiple laws, those are choices that endanger the lives of others, we must find another word for that, its not the word “accident”. In addition, even the drivers that take innocent lives, seem to have to empathy at all for their actions and that makes it even more painful. Please, I know its hard to see an older person go off to jail for breaking the law and killing someone, but please understand that our laws are woefully weak, their punishment is so ridiculously inadequate. Somewhere, someway we have to do more to increase the penalties for bad driver behavior in hopes of deterring them from driving recklessly and killing an innocent person. It feels to me that we need to raise the fees for traffic violations and for manslaughter, otherwise, what is there to fear, what is there to cause drivers to fear breaking the law. We need to do more to protect pedestrians, cyclists, the elderly, the disabled and the poor, it is these vulnerable lives that are most threatened along our streets. You know, the red-light cameras at Seco and Bouquet showed that intersection to have more red-light traffic violations then any other intersection that had the cameras. Available to our city council were the statistics, readily available to them for review, to review why so many people run red lights so frequently at that intersection, the had four years of statistics and numbers. Yet they either did not review these reports or did and were not concerned enough to figure out what inherent defects there might be to cause so many to run through that area. Yet having this information, four years of statistics they went ahead and removed the only constant deterrent,, the Red-light Cameras and did Nothing absolutely nothing to mitigate the removal of the cameras, nothing and a few months later our son was taken, through no fault of his own. We did all we could do to teach Wyatt and our older children to be safe when on our roads, to never jaywalk, to walk against traffic so they could see oncoming traffic, to look both ways. We took them to Youth Grove and spoke to them about safety, I remember as if it was just today that I sat with our three children at Youth Grove and discussed safety on our streets, I remember saying these true words ” I Love You All So Much, I couldn’t Imagine my life without you”. Wyatt left our house last summer on his way to the gym, as always, I said be careful honey, we exchanged our I Love You’s and a few moments later he was taken from us. I am writing all of this so that some of you might speak with your children about safety and to let you know what we did not know, which is this, Our Roads are not SAFE for pedestrians and whenever possible we should discourage our children, our loved ones from crossing these dangerous roads until our city makes the necessary changes that demonstrate true pedestrian safety. I only wish, I truly wish I had known what we know now. Let Wyatt’s story cause us all to be more alert, to avoid certain intersections, to drive more carefully, let us as a community work together to demand safer streets that are safe for all of those that have a right to use them. Let us all hug our children everyday as though it might be the last chance we have.
If anyone read the law before they posted here, you would know 1 year is the maximum he could have gotten. Two months is what he got and he is scheduled to be released in less than a month.
Even if he got a year, due to overcrowding in the jails, he would have been let go early anyways.