RHS teachers, friends remember former students after fatal crash

Published 10:43 am Friday, January 9, 2015

For Jose Alaniz-Escalante and Erwin Mendoza, a good education was important.

When they were in school, they focused on learning, a few of their former teachers said.

“These two kids, they wanted to go to college,” said Pilar Gutierrez. “They had plans.”

But those plans were cut short Dec. 19, 2014 when Alaniz-Escalante, 19, and Mendoza, 18, died at the scene in a head-on collision in the 18400 block of Northeast 128th Way near Redmond. According to King County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. DB Gates., Alaniz-Escalante was driving an Acura Integra and Mendoza was the passenger. The vehicle had collided with a Honda Accord, which had been occupied by three people.

The Acura was driving west on Northeast 128th Way when it collided with the eastbound-moving Honda occupied by two adults and a 4-year-old child. A woman in the Honda was transported to an area hospital with serious injuries while the man and child sustained minor injuries.

Initially following the accident, there was speculation that Alaniz-Escalante and Mendoza had been in some sort of street race, but Gates said Thursday there was no street racing involved. She did say, however, speed may be a factor in the crash.

COMPETITIVE AND FOCUSED

Gutierrez, a Spanish teacher at Redmond High School (RHS) who taught the two young men while they were students, described Alaniz-Escalante as very smart and interested in learning, but very competitive when it came to some of the language games they would play in class.

“He was a good student,” she said, adding that Alaniz-Escalante also participated often in class.

Mendoza, Gutierrez said, took control of his education. She said he knew if he sat with his friends in her class, he would not be able to focus, so he requested to be seated at a desk by himself.

“It was so beautiful of him,” she said.

Elizabeth Sirjani, a math teacher at RHS, agreed with Gutierrez about the two young men being serious about their educations. She had both of them in one of her classes two years ago, saying Alaniz-Escalante loved math and worked hard to do well. And while math was not Mendoza’s strength, she said, this did not change his happy and polite attitude and he continued to work hard and apply himself.

“They were good people,” Sirjani said about them.

Jenni Martinez, a current senior at RHS and friend of Alaniz-Escalante and Mendoza, agreed. In a previous report, she described the former as a “little rascal — a fun, young kid” and the latter as a “gentle giant.”

“We lost two really good people,” she said in the report.

AFFECTING A WHOLE COMMUNITY

Martinez was among the family, friends and former teachers who attended a memorial service last month to honor Alaniz-Escalante and Mendoza.

Gutierrez attended, too, as did Sharon Curry, another math teacher at RHS. Unlike Gutierrez and Sirjani, Curry only had one of the young men as a student — Mendoza. Curry said her former student was honest with a funny sense of humor. She said Mendoza was witty and often had goofy — and timely — things to say.

“It was really funny,” she said. “He was really quick that way — very quick witted.”

Curry added that although she never had Alaniz-Escalante as a student, he would come into her classroom every now and then with his friends who were her students. She said he always made sure to say hello to her even though he didn’t really know her.

“They were both very friendly,” Curry said.

She said at the memorial at St. Louise Parish in Bellevue, which was held Dec. 22, 2014, “there were a lot of students a lot of family, a lot of neighbors,” showing how much Alaniz-Escalante’s and Mendoza’s deaths affected the community.

Gutierrez said she attended the memorial because she wanted to say goodbye to her former students, but she also wanted to be there for the students in attendance — Alaniz-Escalante’s and Mendoza’s friends.

“They were in pain,” she said. “They were suffering.”

Sirjani was unable to attend the memorial, but said Alaniz-Escalante’s and Mendoza’s deaths did affect her. She said she had learned about the car crash on the news and had hoped the victims were not some of her students.

Sirjani said worrying about students during a vacation or break just comes with being a teacher. She added that she tells her students that they do have an impact on their teachers’ lives.

“We’re a community here,” she said about the school.