A crossing guard who was struck by a car and killed Wednesday near Stanley Middle School in Lafayette has been identified by the Contra Costa County Coroner’s Office as 45-year-old Ashley Steven Dias, of San Francisco.
A child was also struck, suffered minor injuries and was transported to the hospital.
Police responded at 2:56 p.m. Wednesday to a report of a man trapped under a vehicle in front of the school. People nearby pulled Dias from under the vehicle and emergency responders began administering CPR.
Dias was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Police haven’t released the name of the driver involved, but said the person has been interviewed and is being cooperative.
Lafayette School District officials were at the scene Thursday morning to offer support for students and parents. Extra counseling support will be available to students this week.
“We are extraordinarily saddened to learn of the loss of a member of our school community, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” district superintendent Richard Whitmore said in a statement. “We also regret the terrible impact of this accident on the student directly involved, the family members, and the additional students who witnessed the accident.”
28 comments
Really bad. How did that happen?
Assuming it happened on Pleasant Hill rd…..WHERE IS LAFAYETTE PD??? PH road has been a speed way for far too long. 35mph…..but you get mowed down of you aren’t doing 55mph!!!
Time to move that Radar box from Stanley & Camino Pablo where it’s been for 6 months and deal with that Pleasant Hill Rd Speed way.
R,
How did that happen? Well.. Inna nutshell… There are no speed limits anymore. There are no traffic laws anymore.
The hard working dedicated police officers of our once great communities are tied up arresting and re-arresting(and re-rearresting) the career criminals that the California Demorat politicians support and protect, through their no bail, get out of jail free liberal policies.
Maybe behind the school on St. Mary’s Rd.
The other streets around the school have pretty slow traffic.
Yes, it was on St. Mary’s Rd. in front of the school. An eyewitness is a good friend of mine.
According to News 24/680, they are reporting the crossing guard pushed children out of the path of an approaching car and taking the impact himself and pinned under the vehicle. = A true hero. Rest well Ashley.
Somebody’s going to be really late for work or something else more important than safety of the children, now.
gotta assume distracted by phone.
I now honk at people as I drive by them if they’re on their phone. You should too.
We don’t know exactly what happened here but it is truly frightening to see the number of drivers on a daily basis that are clearly looking at their phones while they drive. They don’t think about what could happen at any moment because they weren’t paying enough attention to the road. “It’ll never happen, I’m too good a driver and I’m paying attention, I’m only looking down for seconds at a time”…..Scary.
Must have been a really important text or e-mail message. Overhead TV coverage showed no skid marks. Dent to edge of hood right center. School crossing guard is a hero for saving a youngster’s life.
I hope there’s a Go Fund Me account set up for him.
Stanley School in no where close to Pleasant Hill Road
The school guard was one special human being. The driver was probably speeding and distracted by the phone. If this is the case, Maximum sentence.!!! No COVID b.s. about full prisons!
I am not surprised at all. When I used to walk my kids to Highlands Elementary, which I did because it was extremely dangerous, near misses were a daily occurrence. From what I’ve witnessed at other schools around Claycord, this is the normal state of affairs. I can’t characterize the driver in Lafayette because I don’t know, but I can speak at length and with authority about the hazardous drivers in Claycord. They are not outsiders. They are not immigrants. They are not poor. The most likely driver to run over your kid or a crossing guard in Claycord, is a reasonably attractive Caucasian woman in a late model SUV with a “helmet head” hairstyle and expensive clothes. She likely has stickers on her back window signifying affiliation with local youth sports organizations. She may have a totem hanging from her rear view mirror to celebrate her vacation at a tropical resort where Americans go to binge drink. In short, she is us. It is the well to do Claycord soccer mom that is so focused on getting her kid to school and herself to work or to Starbucks that she will accelerate around anything she deems an obstacle to those goals. We like to think of ourselves as “nice people” or “good people”, but we’re really not. That veneer is so painfully thin. This is not hyperbole. This was my M-F reality for many years.
Rolaids: Thank you lining up all the points. The “they” are us. This applies to any city, town, community or neighborhood.
The hours between 7AM-9AM and 3PM-6PM are the most dangerous for pedestrians. Drivers are rushing to drop off their kids or picking them up in the afternoon for other activities.
Way to make it a woman. I see more men drive like out-of-touch jerks and they seem to be more often on their phones. They are us, too.
The traffic on Claycord Ave, leading to Silverwood School, should be monitored by the Concord PD. Not only do drivers fly over the speed bumps without slowing, the line they form to pick up their kids usually extends more than a block long, making it necessary for those drivers NOT picking up kids to cross over the double line in order to get to their destination. This makes for a curious situation when meeting a car head on, coming from the opposite direction, both in the same lane. It also impacts mail delivery, UPS, FedEx and other delivery services.
@ Oh, please. I didn’t MAKE it a woman, it IS a woman. That is according to my multi year front row Mon-Fri survey. It should not come as a surprise that parents dropping their kids off at elementary skew towards the feminine.
So yes, I absolutely painted a stereotype based on extensive direct observation. It’s called profiling. That word has a bad rap as of late, but it’s what EVERYONE, including you, do. It is useful for catching serial killers, maintaining personal safety, or correctly identifying the sort of person that presents the greatest danger to children going to school.
You say more men drive like “out of touch jerks”. I don’t dispute that. I’m sure that is the reality you have observed or you wouldn’t say it. It is not sexist if it’s true. I would say more men are playing “Fast and Furious” at night around Claycord. I can’t see them, but I can hear them all night. I’m going to be sexist and assume each and every one is a male. I also practice gender bigotry by assuming each and every Hwy 4 shooting was perpetrated by a male. Those are wild stereotypes based only on my prejudices about men. But my notions about reckless drivers around schools? Those are based on many years of direct observation.
Thank you for being a volunteer crossing guard, Mr. Dias.
May you Rest In Peace. My condolences to your family.
According to reports a grandmother picking up a grandchild at the middle school was driving the SUV that hit him.
How in the world did she not see him and the children in a crosswalk? Was she speeding? Looking elsewhere? What are her consequences?
Pat, I heard the sun was in her eyes, I don’t know if it’s true but it is a possibility.
Does anyone stop to think maybe, just maybe this was a total freak accident? Maybe she looked back at her grandchild for a split second, maybe the sun was in her eyes, maybe she accidentally hit the gas instead of the break. It’s not always a drunk/distracted/careless speeder, they’re called accidents for a reason.
Of course it’s devastating for everyone involved, let’s not make assumptions and add to it.
R.I.P. Mr. Dias
Yes, I agree, it could be a freak accident, and I need more info before I blame the driver, but (see my other post) I see enough drivers everyday, doing something that could very well cause an accident, that has be considered as a possibility.
She hit a human being, in a crosswalk, in a school zone, while the school was letting out.
Just maybe it was caused by aliens.
Hope they throw that woman in prison. There is zero excuse for any sort of accident of this extreme in front of a school when children are present. Accident or not she killed someone.
She will probably get a fine. She is from Lafayette and will have no trouble paying this fine. Its not illegal to murder people with a car.
Don’t know how it happened, I’m not ready to blame the driver until I have more information. I’m pretty sure she is pretty traumatized. However, if she was speeding, looking at her phone there is no excuse.
The other day when I was leaving Sun Valley Mall, I had just pulled out from my parking spot, and started drive towards the exit, when a car comes from the parking lane shoot across parking spots fairly fast, he cut across the parking spots instead of using the lane, as there were other parked car, I did not see him, and my guess his visibility was limited, fortunately I was a few seconds away from him hitting me. When I worked at Stanford Mall, a car drove very fast out of the parking garage, turned to the street, and hit a pedestrian, who was walking in crosswalk, which is clearly marked. he ended up under the car, (never found out if it was a fatality) when EMS arrived they not only had to deal with the injured, but also the driver, who was a young woman, she became totally hysterical and was taken to the hospital as well. Speeding, disregarding crosswalks, cutting corners, running red lights, it not worth the risk. If you injure or kill someone, unless you are a very callous person, you will suffer PSTD.
This is the sentence that gets me.
Police haven’t released the name of the driver involved, but said the person has been interviewed and is being cooperative.
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