City of Sacramento Settles for $9.75 Million After Police Officer's Vehicle Kills 9-Month-Old on I-80
A Sacramento family received a then-record $9.75 million civil settlement after a Sacramento police officer's department vehicle rear-ended their car at 63 mph on Interstate 80, fatally injuring 9-month-old Raiden Saechao.
What happened
On December 17, 2013, Steve Saechao was driving westbound on Interstate 80 near Rocklin, California with his infant son properly secured in a car seat. Traffic had stopped in the right lane when a vehicle traveling at 63 mph struck the Saechao car from behind, sending it into a moving truck. The at-fault driver was a Sacramento Police officer.
Raiden Saechao, nine months old, suffered severe head injuries in the collision despite being properly restrained. He died in the hospital five days later. The Placer County District Attorney declined to file criminal charges against the officer, leaving civil litigation as the family's only avenue for accountability.
John Demas of Demas Law Group, P.C. took the case and built it around the dashcam and crash data evidence. 'There's no braking; there's no evasive maneuver,' Demas told reporters. 'The driver is proceeding the same speed at 63 mph throughout the entire sequence.' The officer later testified he had no memory from the moment he entered the freeway until after the collision, raising questions about his condition before the crash.
The civil case had another layer: the City of Sacramento initially denied the officer was on duty at the time. The city eventually acknowledged his employment status. That admission opened the door to municipal liability, which proved central to the litigation.
In 2017, the City of Sacramento agreed to a $9.75 million settlement. At the time, the result was reported as a record civil settlement for an infant death case in California. Steve Saechao stated publicly that the family intended to donate a portion of the funds to raise awareness about distracted driving. John Demas described the loss as 'unspeakable,' noting the settlement could not fill the void left by the death of a healthy infant.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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