A tragic scene

By Robert Rogers
Staff Writer

SAN BERNARDINO -- Dots of yellow paint traced the car's deadly path. Struck the center median. Veered onto the sidewalk, skid marks indicating high speeds. Careened back to the other side of the street.

The orange paint was more macabre. Circles and amorphous shapes. Letters and numbers, P.1, P.2, P.3, P.4., marking where William Dinoso, 28, and Glenda Brooks, 26, and their two young children laid after a suspected drunk driver plowed into their family bike ride.

Rialto Fire Captain Mike Cosentino has seen a lot in 24 years on the force.

But nothing could harden him enough to maintain professional cool Monday morning, as he solemnly surveyed the yellow dots and orange marks that grimly told the story of how the young family was run down.

"This is terrible, just terrible," Cosentino muttered. "It's just so sad, I don't know what to say."

Cosentino and two comrades had pulled their fire engine into an alley near the railroad tracks. They paced over the scene, which spanned more than 200 yards from where the Honda SUV first struck the median to where it came to rest, with Brooks on the hood, on the west curb in front of a Rialto School District office.

All just a block south from police headquarters.

Cosentino wasn't on duty Sunday, but one of his colleagues was. The firefighter tended to Brooks.

Cosentino said the firefighter's name was Joe. Joe stared at one of the orange circles.
"She was right there in the street, laying in the gutter," Joe said. "He carried her (on the car) 60 yards or so." A black, elastic headband was all that remained at that spot Monday.

Joe declined to give his last name. He briefly explained his actions.
"When I arrived, we had plenty of personnel on the other victims," he said. "You prioritize who needs help."

Brooks was conscious, he said.

"She was very disoriented; she was badly injured."

Joe didn't want to talk more than a minute or so.

"It's hard to see, yeah," he said. "I just wanted to come out and see it again today."

"Look," Joe concluded. "I don't really like newspapers and reporters and stuff, no offense. I've got to go."

Despite being right in the corridor of police, fire, Rialto school district and other civic organizations, the scene remained unadorned until 11 a.m.

Then three friends walked up. They didn't know the victims, but each felt a tug, something that drew them to the site after reading about it in the paper.

Sanna Ok, 27, placed a bouquet of yellow flowers against the tree near which little Josslyn Dinoso-Brooks laid dying. Then he lit incense. He closed his eyes and intoned a Buddhist prayer.

"I have a young daughter," Ok said. "It could have been me and her, walking down the street."

After praying, Ok grabbed at something in the gravel near the tree.

An innertube for a bike tire, splashed in orange paint. A stretched hole where the valve was ripped out. Maybe from the tire of the bicycle baby carriage.

"Senseless, just senseless," Ok said.