NEW ORLEANS — Christa Larsen said we caught her at the end of a three-day grief spiral. The Minnesota mom was dialed into a Zoom call from a back porch in Minnesota, where fall leaves were just starting to turn in the background.
“Life is precious. I do not want one other family to go through this. It is pure hell. It’s pure hell,” she said.
Larsen knows hell. She knows loss. Ten years ago, her husband died after an illness. Last year, the Minnesota mom got the devastating call that she’d lose her daughter, too, at the hands of someone else.
“I am not gonna let Christina die in vain,” she said. “It is debilitating. The grief is debilitating. It is debilitating.”
Christina Larsen, Christa’s only daughter, loved New Orleans. She was a graphic designer at Nola Couture, had a warm circle of friends and beloved family back in Minnesota. She also had a mom whose grief has turned to grit.
“Let’s get that data and let’s put it out there and let’s start doing something,” Larsen said.
What keeps Christa Larsen up at night is the number of hit and runs in New Orleans every year. In 2021, according to data from New Orleans Police, 1,130 people were injured by drivers who took off.
Police say this number may be even higher because injuries may not be realized right away or may not be reported to police.
Nine people died in hit and runs last year.
Christina Larsen was one of them.
“To me, how do you not stop for a human being in the crosswalk?” Christa Larsen said. It’s a question she still can’t answer.
February 27th 2021, around 7 P.M., St. Charles Avenue. 31-year-old Christina Larsen was out walking her chocolate lab, Hubert. At Harmony Street, the pair stepped off the neutral ground to cross in the crosswalk.
In the blink of an eye, a speeding Honda Civic hit her so hard, she was thrown half a block.
The 22-year-old behind the wheel, Adrian Caliste, Junior, kept on going.
At least 9 others chose not to stop, too. Surveillance video shows drivers slowing down, and swerving around Christina’s body in the street to continue on their way.
She was removed from life support and died March 2nd, 2021. Her injuries were too severe to even donate most organs.
“Her eyes couldn’t be used and her heart tissue couldn’t be used,” said Christina’s mother. “She had too much damage.”
But the heartache piled on. As Larsen was planning her daughter’s funeral, Christina’s killer was covering up his crime.
Police reports we obtained say Caliste first told police he was carjacked at gunpoint at Lafayette and Baronne Streets. He signed an affidavit reporting his car stolen.
But then, as police wrote in a subsequent report, “during the interview, changed his story several times and there were several inconsistencies with his story.”
Investigators discovered days later, it was all a coverup. Documents say Caliste was even caught on camera ditching his car moments after hitting Christina.
“He was arrested March 11th,” Larsen said. “There’s no excuse, and I will never forgive the man.”
For 19 months, Larsen grieved the loss of her daughter while navigating the complicated New Orleans justice system.
Caliste was free, out on bail. As it turns out, that 19 months waiting for a sentence is longer than Caliste will likely spend in prison.
While a judge sentenced him to three and a half years behind bars, the Orleans District Attorney’s Office explained to us that he’ll likely only serve a little over a year. The crime Caliste was convicted of is not classified as a crime of violence, and he has no previous record.
Just one year. Another blow. Another number swirling in Christa Larsen’s mind.
“The sentence is woefully inadequate. I mean, he lied to the police several times. He didn’t stop,” said Larsen.
While she says a longer sentence would have sent a message to hit and run drivers, Christina’s case did come to a conclusion and a conviction.
New Orleans Police say just two of the nine fatal hit and runs in 2021 ended in an arrest. There is no readily available data, police say, on the number of hit and runs with injury that were solved.
But Larsen said there are far too many to begin with.
“My point is, what can I do to move things in the right direction so another family does not have to go through this?” she said.
From more than one-thousand miles away, she’s looking for ways to change the statistics. Larsen has suggested blinking lights at crosswalks or even speed bumps along St. Charles Avenue might make drivers more aware of people crossing the street.
“My thing is, is, let’s make New Orleans better. Christina loved New Orleans. I loved New Orleans, I hate New Orleans, I love New Orleans, I hate New Orleans.”
At least, she says, she’d like to remind drivers of their humanity when they get behind the wheel. We all have a responsibility to the lives of others on the road and the families they leave behind.
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