Man Gets 46 Years to Life for Fatally Injuring Another Driver During a Police Chase

By City News Service

A man was sentenced today to 46 years to life in state prison for running a red light in Pomona during a July 2012 police pursuit and crashing into another vehicle, fatally injuring a motorist whose wife had been killed at the same intersection a few months earlier.

Pomona Superior Court Judge Mike Camacho sentenced Brian Vance Coleman, 35. He was convicted Oct. 15 of second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter, evading a police officer causing death, leaving the scene of an accident and unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle with a prior conviction.

Coleman ran a red light at Towne and La Verne avenues in Pomona July 29, 2012, and broadsided Jesus Bugarin-Mercado's Toyota Camry, according to Deputy District Attorney Michael Matoba.

Bugarin-Mercado, 54, of Pomona, died in the crash, which occurred about 10 weeks after his wife died in an accident at the same intersection.

The silver pickup truck Coleman was driving was reported stolen in Rancho Cucamonga about 4 a.m. that day and later spotted by a Claremont police officer who tried to make a traffic stop near Towne Avenue and Arrow Highway, authorities said.

Claremont police -- who were involved in the July 2012 chase -- said Coleman had fled police in a stolen vehicle before.

He was arrested by the California Highway Patrol in March 2005 after a chase that ended in a crash in Fontana, Claremont police said shortly after the fatal 2012 crash.

Coleman was convicted in May 2005 in San Bernardino County of unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle, according to the criminal complaint.