Tracy mourns death of CHP officer killed on Christmas Eve

TRACY — California Highway Patrol Officer Andrew Camilleri’s three children were expecting him to return to their Tracy home and help open presents after his Christmas Eve night shift.

Instead, the 33-year-old officer was killed after his patrol vehicle was struck by an alleged drunken driver along the side of Interstate 880 in Hayward. The driver, authorities said, had been heading home after a holiday party.

“This is not the way we wanted to celebrate Christmas Day,” CHP division Chief Ernie Sanchez told reporters, adding that the CHP will consider Camilleri, a 2002 West High School graduate, to be a hero both “now and forever.”

Word of the tragedy spread rapidly on Christmas. By Tuesday morning the Tracy community was widely mourning Camilleri’s death.

His church, Mission City Church, reported the “tragic and unimaginable” loss on Facebook.

“Andrew is a hero and gave his life serving and protecting all of us,” the church wrote. “Our hearts are so broken but our hope lies in Jesus Christ. He is the author and finisher of our faith. Andrew has finished well!”

Ronald Goehring wrote that he works at the Raley’s in Tracy and struck up a friendship with the officer, who was one of his customers. Camilleri even promised him a ride-along one day. “Officer Camilleri will always have a friend with me,” Goehring wrote. “I wish I could have gotten to know him better, but I do know he was simply a man with a heart of gold.”

The city of Tracy released its own statement, with officials saying they were “deeply saddened” by what had happened.

Late Tuesday afternoon, a procession for Camilleri carried the fallen officer’s body home to Tracy from the Alameda County Coroner’s Office, with a convoy of police vehicles and motorcycles from agencies throughout the area following.

Camilleri and another officer, Jonathan Velasquez, had been stopped in their sport utility patrol vehicle along the Winton Avenue onramp to southbound Interstate 880. They were watching for speeding vehicles as part of the CHP’s typical enhanced holiday enforcement.

Just after 11:30 p.m., an errant driver drifted off the interstate and struck the right rear of the officers’ vehicle, the CHP said.

Velasquez, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, survived the impact. Camilleri, in the front passenger seat, was taken to St. Rose Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“The impact was so severe that it turned a utility (CHP) vehicle into a very small compact vehicle,” Sanchez told reporters. “It kind of gives you an idea of the speeds that were involved in this.”

The driver of the errant car, a 22-year-old Hayward man whose name had not been released by Tuesday morning, was hospitalized. He was expected to be charged upon his release, Sanchez said.

The 22-year-old driver had been returning home from a party and “obviously had too much to drink and maybe too much to smoke,” Sanchez said, alluding to officers’ suspicions that marijuana might have been involved.