After spending his evening at a strip club, slamming some beers, and re-enacting The Fast and the Furious on the streets of west Phoenix over the weekend, the last thing on a Phoenix man's to-do list was apparently to crash into a family's house and kill a man sleeping inside.
Police say Eduardo Luis Arechiga, 21, crashed his 1995 GMC Yukon into a house on the 7300 block of West Roma Avenue in Phoenix around 4:30 a.m. Saturday. Tragically, the SUV came to rest on top of a man sleeping on a mattress inside, killing him.
Arechiga told police he was driving to his cousin's house when he mistook the gas pedal for the brake and lost control of the vehicle, crashing into a house just a few doors down from his cousin's.
He later told police he then "panicked" after running the man over, and ran away from the area on foot.
Arechiga was located by his cousin, who had been "doing donuts and burnouts" with him in a different vehicle up and down North 73rd Avenue prior to the crash. He took Arechiga to a nearby convenience store so he could turn himself in to police.
A drug recognition expert determined Arechiga was impaired by alcohol, police say, and he admitted to police to drinking six beers throughout the night.
Police say Arechiga had endangered a total of eight other people during his escapade, including six children who were sleeping in a bedroom in the house into which he crashed "just a few feet" from where his SUV landed.
About $12,000 worth of damage was done to the house, police say, and the Phoenix Fire Department determined the house unsafe due to damage sustained by a supporting wall.
Arechiga was booked on charges of reckless manslaughter, failing to stay at the scene of an accident, criminal damage, and eight counts of endangerment -- all felonies.
