Jashanpreet Singh, whose big rig traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour plowed into three vehicles at a standstill on the 10 Freeway and then careened across two lanes of traffic and utterly destroyed two further vehicles while killing three motorists and injuring four others last October, has quietly pleaded guilty to three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter.
The resolution of the criminal charges against the 21-year-old Singh, who came into the country illegally by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 and began illicitly operating tractor trailers before reaching the age of majority and without having proper licensure or a full understanding of the English language, leaves a multitude of questions unanswered.
A video taken by a dash cam inside the cab of the Freightliner that Singh was driving westbound on the 10 Freeway near the 15 Freeway Interchange on October 21, 2025 provides a perspective on the roadway in front of the speeding truck in the seconds leading up to the collision, the collision itself and its immediate aftermath. The video’s field of view was virtually indistinguishable from what Singh would have seen as the driver, if he were in fact conscious or not in some way distracted.
That dash cam video, obtained by the Sentinel, shows the red Freightliner tractor in the number five lane on the seven-lane westbound portion of the freeway, counting the two high occupancy/toll lanes to the left/south as the number one and two lanes, traveling at a high rate of speed estimated to be no less than 63 miles per hour, failing to brake entirely as it runs into the back of and obliterates a white Kia Sorento that had been at a full stop for several seconds before the impact. The video shows the Freightliner continuing into the back of a white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, which is hit hard and reels to the left as the Freightliner continues unabated into the backside of another semi-tractor-pulled trailer, the rear of which momentarily lifts into the air upon impact. The momentum of the Freightliner at that point was diminished somewhat, though it pitches to the right across two lanes of traffic where it ran into the front of a disabled tractor connected to a long flatbed trailer and the back of a service truck in front of the disabled tractor that were in place on the shoulder of the freeway while work was being done on the disabled tractor. The disabled tractor’s front hood was draped open forward so a roadside mechanic could get access to its engine. The opened hood appeared to have been clipped and destroyed along with major elements of the tractor’s engine in the crash.
The collision resulted in at least one of the vehicles, or what was left of it, igniting. Killed instantly were 76-year-old Clarence Nelson, a former assistant basketball coach at Pomona High School, and his 69-year-old wife, Lisa Nelson. A third person, 54-year-old Jaime Flores Garcia, who was grievously injured, was transported to a hospital, where he later died. There were at least four people injured other than those killed, one seriously.
Officers with the California Highway Patrol determined that Singh, whose residence in the United States was given as in Yuba City, was at the wheel of the Freightliner when the collision took place at around 1:10 p.m. on October 21, 2025. In relatively short order, Highway Patrol investigators were able to obtained the dash cam video from the Freightliner’s cab.
Remarkably, the truck Singh was in sustained less damage overall than three of the vehicles involved in the wreck and experienced no more damage than did two of the others.
Singh came away from the crash relatively intact, with only a minor contusion. Based not only on an objective assessment of his condition after the crash but on the analysis of the dash cam footage, Singh was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and three counts of manslaughter.
In California, driving while intoxicated in a situation in which a collision results in death can be prosecuted as murder or gross vehicular manslaughter. Anticipating that toxicology tests on blood that was drawn from Singh would confirm he was intoxicated, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was loading up to pursue a murder conviction against him.
In a blow to the credibility of the Highway Patrol and the district attorney’s office, toxicology tests determined there was no alcohol or illicit drugs present in Singh’s blood at the time the blood was drawn, less than two hours after the collision took place. This presented complications with regard to how prosecutors were to proceed against him.
The driving under the influence counts were dropped, but the district attorney’s office pressed forward with the three aforementioned counts of manslaughter in addition to three counts of VC23558-E: causing bodily injury or death; and two counts of PC12022.7(A)-E: great bodily injury on a person.
The matter was complexified by an intense power struggle that was unfolding between federal and state authorities as the case against Singh was being initiated in earnest.
Singh in 2022 came to the United States illegally, entering across the Mexican border. He was an unregistered alien and went to work that year as a truck driver, despite being underage and undocumented. He subsequently applied for asylum, but was yet an unregistered alien.
Soon after Donald Trump’s second go-round as U.S. President began in January 2025, his administration initiated a crackdown on illegal immigration into the country. An element of that enforcement effort related to the upsurge of foreigners, many of them undocumented, who had found employment in the trucking industry. In 2000, roughly 310,000 of the 2.6 million truck drivers in the United States were foreign-born. In 2025, the number of truck drivers in the country had grown to 3.55 million. Of those, roughly 639,000 had been born outside of the United States. Some 22 percent or 140,589 of those had become, as of last year, naturalized citizens. Another 37 percent of those foreign-born drivers, 236,430, had visas allowing them to be in, and remain in, the country. The remaining 41 percent of truck drivers in the country who had been born on foreign soil – 261,990 – were in the country illegally or as undocumented aliens.
In California, particularly under Governor Gavin Newsom, the state government had taken a laissez-faire posture with regard to many of those drivers not being naturalized citizens and having no visas. The Trump Administration had a demonstrably different attitude. Its position was that the 261,990 truck drivers in the country illegally or who were otherwise categorized as undocumented aliens should have their commercial driving licenses revoked and be deported.
Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, took steps to enforce a requirement that truckers speak and read English proficiently. According to the Transportation Department, achieving minimal literacy on the part of truck drivers was a necessary element in a program to improve road safety.
In July 2025, Duffy said the Transportation Department carried out a “spot review” of 145 commercial driving licenses issued to foreigners. Of those, he said, 36 should not have been issued. Extrapolating on the results of that review, nearly one quarter of the foreign-born truck drivers in the country had insufficient skills or training or were otherwise incapable of being licensed to operate the road machinery they were driving on a regular basis, according to the federal government.
Following that review, the Transportation Department issued an order, signed by Duffy, which went into effect on September 26, 2025, calling upon individual states to rescind the commercial driver licenses they had issued to non-citizens.
There was rancorous partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats on that issue.
California officials said Duffy and other federal officials were overreacting and that positions within America’s vast logistics industry such as those of truck driver represented an excellent entrance opportunity for those immigrants seeking to integrate themselves and their families into American society as newcomers to the country.
The Transportation Department under President Trump and Duffy also grew serious about enforcing long-standing regulations with regard to drivers considered too young to drive commercially. Traditionally, commercial driver licenses, which permit a holder to drive large rigs across state lines, are issued only to those 21 years of age or older. There is, however, an exemption made for those 18-through-20 years of age taking part in the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Program. Involvement in that program requires adhering to certain strict guidelines, including constant supervision, as well as registration requirements.
Singh was born on October 15, 2004 and began working as a commercial driver sometime in the summer of 2022, when he was still 17. Thus, until just seven days before he killed three people and injured four others, October 14, the day before his 21st birthday on October 15, 2025, Singh was in violation of two provisions of the law relating to commercial truck drivers, and had eluded being subjected to those regulations, meant to enhance the safety of the nation’s highways, largely because of the lax nature of California’s policies.
Shortly after he arrived in the United States, Singh began driving large two axle vehicles, including stake bed and box trucks. It appears that he was doing so without having first obtained a standard, noncommercial Class C license, the basic licensure for all drivers in California. Without being registered as an alien present in the country, he thereafter obtained a standard Class C license. It was during this time that he first began driving three-axle commercial vehicles. He was doing so without having a commercial Class B license, which applies to 3-axle vehicles weighing over 6,000 pounds or two-axle vehicles with a gross vehicular weight of up to 10,000 pounds, as well as without having a Class A license, applying to any single vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds and semi-trucks.
He began driving semi-trucks without having the requisite Class A license and before obtaining a Class B license. Ultimately, by 2024, the State of California issued him a Class A license, with which he was authorized to drive semi-tractors pulling trailers. It is not clear how he was able to obtain that license after having, on numerous occasions, driven vehicles he was not licensed to operate.
Moreover, there are multiple indications that Singh had demonstrated a degree of disregard for traffic laws and the safety of other motorists and himself. The Sentinel, which confined itself to researching the traffic citations issued to Singh in San Bernardino County alone, uncovered ten citations for traffic law violations issued to him in the two-and-a-half years before the October 21, 2025 collision.
San Bernardino County Superior Court records show that of the ten citations he was issued while he was operating a big rig over that two-and-a-half year span, two of those matters were dismissed, he was convicted or entered guilty pleas on five and three had yet to be fully adjudicated as of the October 21, 2025 incident.
At the Fontana Courthouse, he was acquitted of a charge of violating VC22348(C)-I: operating a vehicle out of its designated lane that was filed against him on April 26, 2023.
On July 11, 2023, September 10, 2024 and October 8, 2024, Singh was charged with violating VC22406(A)-I, exceeding the maximum speed allowable for trucks. In each case he appeared at the Needles Courthouse to answer those charges and was ultimately convicted.
On October 7, 2024, he was charged with violating VC21460(A)-I, riding left of a double yellow line. He answered that charge at the Joshua Tree Courthouse and was acquitted.
On February 27, 2025 he was once more charged with speeding. He appeared in Needles Traffic Court to answer that charge, entering a not guilty plea, and the matter is yet to adjudicated.
On April 18, 2025, he was again charged with exceeding the maximum speed allowable for trucks. He was convicted of that charge in Needles Traffic Court.
On May 1, 2025 and again on May 26, 2025, he was charged with speeding while operating a commercial vehicle. Both of those matters were scheduled to be heard in Needles Traffic Court, on dates after his October 2025 arrest and incarceration.
On July 10, 2025, he was issued a citation for not having an operator’s license, driving a vehicle for which the registration fees were delinquent and not having evidence of insurance coverage. He failed to appear on that matter at the Fontana Courthouse on October 10, 2025. No bench warrant was issued, but a courtesy notice was sent to his home in Yuba City.
These are citations issued only in San Bernardino County and do not include citations issued in any of California’s 57 other counties or in states outside of California.
Following his arrest on October 21, 2025, Singh had, as of June 16, 2026, remained in custody 238 days on a no-bail hold. That day, June 16, he appeared in Department R-2 in the West Valley Justice Center in Rancho Cucamonga before Judge Katrina West. Present were Deputy District Attorney Jamie Cimino, who had been prosecuting the case against him from the outset and Deputy Public Defender Jason Tucker. Tucker had representing Singh, along with Deputy Public Defender Zoe Korpi, who had also previously served as his defense counsel.
Based on a deal arrived at between Tucker and Cimino, Singh entered guilty pleas to three counts of felony PC192(C)(1), vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. As part of the deal, the prosecution dropped a VC23103(A)-23105-F charge of felony reckless driving, a vehicle code violation; and dropped two PC12022.7(A)-E sentencing enhancements that could have added three to five years each onto his prison term.
Judge West ordered him to appear again before her on July 14 for sentencing.
The matter pertaining to Singh in San Bernardino County appears to be drawing to a close without any trial, which is depriving the public of an explanation as to precisely what was going on in the cab of the Freightliner that Singh was operating on October 21, 2025, and whether he had completely abandoned the wheel, was incapacitated in some fashion, was dealing with unresponsive controls, had fallen asleep or was otherwise unconscious. The video shows the truck rushing headlong onto the completely immobile line of traffic in front of it. While the truck remains on a perfectly straight course within its lane, the throttle or accelerator remains fully engaged and there is absolutely no indication that braking of any sort occurred.
During his first court appearance in October, it was revealed Singh was in need of a Punjabi translator for his subsequent court appearances. This has been widely taken as an indication that his skill with English was insufficient to have allowed him to read the California Driver Handbook.
There has been no indication that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is contemplating any action with regard to the state offices or bureaus or officials who granted Singh his commercial truck driver license.
The federal government, however, appears intent on following through with some order of action against Singh, who was born in India and has lodged a request for asylum, despite his having come into the country illegally and having consistently failed to apply for legal visiting status.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Singh illegally entered the United States in 2022 and remained present in the country without authorization thereafter. The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has requested a detainer of Singh from state authorities, including the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which is housing him at its High Desert Detention Facility, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which will presumably accept him after his sentencing. The detainer requests federal authorities be given notification at least 48 hours in advance of Singh’s release from local or state custody. That is an indication that federal authorities are looking to apprehend him and either question him, perhaps extensively, about his entry into the country and whom he might have networked with to do so and remain in California unregistered and undetected, or to perhaps initiate deportation proceedings against him, or both.
-Mark Gutglueck