54 years in fatal ramming of carload of teens

A gang member was sentenced to 54 years in prison today for ramming a carload of teens on Chicago’s West Side and killing an 18-year-old college student because he mistakenly thought they were gang rivals.
Shalimar Santiago, 30, showed no reaction as Judge Joseph Claps handed down the punishment for first-degree murder and seven counts of aggravated battery in the August 2009 crash that killed aspiring doctor Stephanie Herrera.
Moments before, Santiago stood at the defense table and apologized to the victims, but he said it was all a tragic accident and he was not the monster portrayed by prosecutors.
“I want to apologize to the victims,” Santiago said in a gruff voice as Herrera’s mother and father held each other in the front row of the courtroom gallery. “This was a car accident…I cannot bring her back, but I apologize.”
Herrera and seven friends from the suburbs were in a black SUV in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood trying to find their way to the expressway when Santiago mistook them for rivals who had shot his friend hours earlier.
Santiago chased the SUV through the streets and rammed it several times before it crashed into a utility pole. Herrera, a straight-A student from Melrose Park who was about to begin her sophomore year at the University of Illinois at Chicago, never regained consciousness and died several days later.