DUBLIN — Jury selection has started in the murder trial for the 24-year-old Hayward man charged with murdering a California Highway Patrol officer in what police describe as a 120-mile-an-hour drunk driving crash.
Mohammad Abraar Ali was also injured in the crash that killed CHP officer Andrew Camilleri and injured Camilleri’s partner on Christmas Eve 2017. Authorities say Ali was speeding in a Cadillac on Interstate 880 in Hayward when he drifted off the road and rear-ended the parked police vehicle.
Camilleri, in the driver’s seat, was killed. His partner was injured. Ali’s blood-alcohol content was later registered at .11, while .008 is considered legally drunk, authorities said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys are scheduled to make opening statements before Judge Michael Gaffey and the jury on Oct. 21.
Ali faces a second degree murder charge, which if convicted makes him eligible for a sentence of life without a chance for parole for the first 15 years. In order to prove it, prosecutors will have to convince the jury that Ali was not only driving drunk that night, but that he knew his actions were likely to kill someone and ignored the risk.
Ali allegedly told police he was drunk and high on marijuana that night, and kept driving after thinking “at least three times” about pulling over, a CHP officer wrote in a sworn court statement.
