On the morning of May 22, four men, including Cal State LA graduate Hussein Ali Saleh, and Hussein Yasser Saab, Hussein Moussa Ayoub, and Hussein Ahmad Ghasham, lost control and crashed into a pole near the Firestone Boulevard exit at approximately 3:15 a.m., authorities said.
The 2014 BMW was headed northbound on the 710 freeway when several witnesses told police that they had been street racing, some believed over 100 mph. While the California Highway Patrol can neither confirm or deny if the crash was due to the speed that the vehicle was going, CHP Sgt. Jason Lopez said long tracks of skid marks were visible during the press conference.
“We have a lot of leads to go off of to see if there was indeed some racing prior to the collision, right now that’s all speculative,” Lopez said at the scene.
Hussein Saleh graduated last Tuesday with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry.
“He was a humble and noble guy, family oriented,” said Sally Acosta, a Cal State LA student and long time friend of Saleh.
“He always tried to lend a hand when he could and he decided to quit his job to focus on school and do right by his family,” Acosta added.
Police have yet to confirm who was driving the vehicle, however all four students were Bell residents and they were all under the age of 25.
“Always be careful, driving isn’t a game,” said recent Cal State LA graduate Mariana Lopez.
“If you have passengers you’re always risking their lives, think about them. Hopefully this is a lesson to others to be careful. Rest in peace.”
All four students will be buried in their parents’ hometown in Lebanon, according to their families. Two passengers involved in the accident were reported to have been cousins and the other two were family friends.
Alcohol is not determined to be a factor in this high-speed crash, although autopsy results are still pending.
Correction June 17, 2019 @ 3:14 p.m.:
Hussein Ali Saleh was the only newly graduated Cal State LA student who was involved in the crash on May 22, 2019.
Cy Husain • Jun 11, 2019 at 8:41 pm
What a serious tragedy loosing 4 young Scientists under 25, one of them Hussein Saleh who graduated in Biochemistry from Cal State LA and, all of them would of contributed significantly to improving humanity’s condition in their later research. An important lesson to take away from this tragic event is the fatal consequences that can easily result from believing that someone completely untrained in handling a potentially dangerous job, can just figure it out even if they are highly intelligent. To the best of my knowledge none of the young men especially the driver had any PROFESSIONAL experience or training in high performance race car driving or tactical driving, yet put themselves into a situation the very best professional drivers would have difficulty handling. I’m sure that I don’t need to put much effort convincing any rational person of this position but, currently society is making the very same error in judgement that may well have the same kind of lethal consequences for rest of humanity.
When it comes to people in positions of power and influence I’m NOT doubting their ability to win friends and influence people while making a great deal of money at it but, they are NOT Scientists nor can they just have a natural understanding of science based entirely on their success in an unrelated field! We are currently seeing more and more business people who have NEVER completed a University level Science Course in positions of influence with the arrogance to completely deny the science when it comes to environmental policy especially on anthropogenic climate change. Just as we should mind the advise of Professional Drivers on Driver safety, we should heed the warnings of our Professional Scientists on our Environmental Impacts.
https://www.livescience.com/65633-climate-change-dooms-humans-by-2050.html