By MICHAEL TITTINGER is editor of the Daily Press. He
ON SEPT. 11 IN NEW YORK CITY, A MUTED memorial service served notice that it was time to move forward, even as we remembered the past. To those still living with the tragedy that befell the city six years ago, it was more or less agreed that it was time to proceed and allow the healing to coincide with normalcy.
In New York, the wounds are on the mend. In Santa Monica, they’ve never even been dressed.
Next year will mark the fifth anniversary of this city’s worst tragedy, and certainly the one least expected — the Farmers’ Market crash of July 16, 2003, when 87-year-old Russell Weller plowed his car into the bustling marketplace, killing 10 people and injuring five dozen more.
Yet, when you take a walk down to the fateful intersection of Arizona Avenue and Third Street, you’d never know anything out of the ordinary ever occurred. There’s no muted memorial, no subdued indication... no marker whatsoever to honor the 10 people who died on that stretch of asphalt, taking part in a time-honored tradition at the downtown Farmers’ Market. When Weller’s car finally came to a stop, due to one last victim’s body serving as a brake, the death toll from the 20-second incident was the largest number of fatalities from a traffic incident in California history.
Last Wednesday — the day before Thanksgiving — loyal patrons and shoppers were out en masse, snatching up grips of chard and turnips, plucking pecans and yams for their familial feast of choice. It’s the busiest Farmers’ Market of the year. Still, there are dozens of families having a hard time being thankful; waiting and waiting for the courts to finally hear their case against City Hall for failing to protect them.
Meanwhile, at the corner of Arizona and Third, it’s business unusual. It’s as if nothing ever happened. It’s one thing to be brave and motor on and continue with life’s pleasures as we once did — those lost that day would surely want their loved ones to live life — but it’s quite another to motor on without stopping to remember the road taken.
The market’s spirit should be maintained, but to turn a blind eye to the greatest tragedy this city has ever known is not only cold, it’s irresponsible.
One can’t help but wonder whether or not the ongoing litigation between the families of the deceased and City Hall has stalled any attempts to permanently honor the fallen in downtown Santa Monica. More than 40 plaintiffs are still awaiting their day in court as they sue Weller, the city and Bayside District for failing to provide protective barricades that might have slowed Weller’s 1992 Buick LeSabre when it sped into the open-air market.
While Weller was ultimately found guilty last year of 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter — and sentenced to a largely symbolic five years’ probation — he never took the stand. Indeed, he has yet to say a word publicly about his intentions that day. His victims have had no semblance of closure. It’s as if it never happened.
Now 90 and in failing health, Weller isn’t long for this world. The stink of it is everybody will recognize his name the moment it appears in a headline five years after the crash, but those lost under his wheels will never get the same play. Maybe a memorial similar to the ones we bestow on our war veterans would help. No one is looking for an inescapably somber symbol that would tower over the tourist-friendly Third Street Promenade, maybe just some kind of acknowledgment that they were there... if we looked hard enough.
Until then, a temporary fix: In memorium of those who lost their lives in the Farmers’ market crash of July 16, 2003: • Brendon Esfahani, 7 months, Los Angeles • Gloria Olivera Gonzalez, 35, Venice • Molok Ghoulian, 62, Los Angeles • Movsha Hoffman, 78, Santa Monica • Diana Y. McCarthy, 41, Los Angeles • Kevin McCarthy, 50, Los Angeles • Lynne Ann Weaver, 47, Woodland Hills • Cindy Palacios Valladares, 3, Los Angeles • Theresa Breglia, 50, New York
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.