Oakland pays $17M for death following police 'ghost chase'

OAKLAND, Calif. - The city of Oakland has agreed to pay the family of a 28-year-old man killed at a taco truck during an unauthorized police "ghost chase" $17 million – among the highest legal settlements in city history. 

The settlement was reached in late July – as a trial was looming – and has not yet been approved by the Oakland City Council, which meets again in September.

Killed in freak accident

What we know:

The money will go to Lolomania "Lolo" Soakai's mother, Lavinia Soakai and his cousins, Daniel Fifita, Ina Lavalu and Samieuela Finau, who were all injured in the June 26, 2022, crash, which occurred after two former police officers started chasing a 19-year-old driver they thought was part of a sideshow without getting authorization to do so. 

In a freak accident, the 19-year-old driver ended up slamming into parked cars and motorcycles on International Boulevard after being chased by police. One of the motorcycles flew into the air and fell on top of Soakai – an airline supervisor, who was getting something to eat at a taco truck. He was killed on scene and his relatives suffered a variety of broken bones. 

The two officers – Walid Abdelaziz and Jimmy Marin-Coronel — left the scene, and one of them made a joke about the crash, hoping that the 19-year-old driver was dead, according to body camera video from the scene. 

The two officers ended up circling back later to find Soakai dead and his mother's back broken, while pretending this was the first they knew about the accident, according to the wrongful death suit and body camera video obtained by attorneys Adante Pointer and Patrick Buelna. 

"These two former Oakland PD officers engaged in what I believe to be one of the more brazen and callous displays of police violence that I've seen in my over 20 years of representing victims of police abuse," Pointer said on Thursday. "What really took the cake here is watching those officers know that the impact and the crash had happened and that many people were either injured, harmed or perhaps dead.. and they didn't go over or call any type of aid to help the victims." 

Soakai's mother has continued to suffer since the accident. 

Not only did her son die, and she broke her back, but Soakai took care of the family financially. She got evicted from her home and had been living out of a car in the park for a time during this period, Pointer said. 

Oakland fought the case

The backstory:

The city of Oakland declined to comment other than to provide the dollar amount of the settlement, which comes four years after the city and the officers' attorneys argued the police weren't responsible civilly for the crash because of a term known as "qualified immunity." 

In January, the police attorneys even asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on this argument, claiming that the police did not violate a bystander's due process when the fleeing suspect they were chasing killed an innocent bystander, but the justices declined to take the case. 

A lower court sided with Soakai's attorneys that Oakland police can be held responsible when bystanders are injured, or killed, during pursuits which are considered "reckless" and unconstitutional. 

"Police officers are often shielded by a lot of legal immunities that shield and protect police officers as well as the cities for being held accountable when they engage in these type of vehicle pursuits on city streets that wind up hurting people," Pointer said. "And in fact, it's my understanding that this is the only case within the country to ever get that far because of the brazen and shocking degree of police callousness and the way in which they did absolutely nothing that was in line with being a police officer from start to finish." 
 

Officers resigned

The officers' ruse was quickly uncovered by another officer and then-police chief Leronne Armstrong, who moved to fire them almost immediately. 

"It's worth noting that if not for the Oakland Police Department conducting a thorough and fair internal affairs investigation, if not, for a fellow officer doing the right thing by coming forward and seeing the extent and the lengths that these officers were going to cover up their involvement and avoid accountability, we may never have really gotten to the truth," Pointer said.

Abdelaziz and Marin-Coronel  received termination letters in 2023, but they remained on administrative leave, yet still employed with OPD, as the legal battle wound its way through many levels of court for more than three years. 

Both resigned from OPD in 2025. 

The 19-year-old driver, Arnold Linaldi, pleaded guilty in May to vehicular manslaughter, and he was sentenced to two years in state prison. He is now on parole, according to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. 

The largest award Oakland has ever paid was $33 million in 2020 to the families of those who died in the Ghost Ship fire. But that award was shared among the families of 32 of the 36 victims who sued the city.