GALT, CA (MPG) - Local law enforcement agencies are asking the Galt community to sign a petition in opposition to the early release of a woman convicted of hitting a Galt teenager with her car in 2022 and causing significant brain damage.

Devin Calderon was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison in March 2023 for striking then-16-year-old Galt resident Angel Renteria with a truck while she was walking her dog, leaving the teenager with permanent brain damage and the need to be fed with a tube through her stomach. She also lost the ability to speak and now resides in a long-term rehabilitation center in San Francisco.

Calderon is being considered for an early release program after serving just 22 months out of the original eight-year sentence. She is scheduled for early release on Feb. 21 to the Community Transitional Reentry Program.

In a letter of opposition sent to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, District Attorney Thien Ho shared a quote from Angel’s father, Fernando Renteria: “Angel’s got a life sentence, and this lady is serving less than two years.” 

“This disparity between the crime committed and the consequences served is an affront to justice and a betrayal of the trust placed in our judicial system by victims and their families,” Ho wrote.

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office created a petition called “Justice for Angel” in preparation for Calderon’s potential release. The Galt Police Department also shared the petition on its Facebook page, requesting community members to support the petition.

According to the District Attorney’s Office, Calderon had a blood alcohol content level of .22% when she drover her Dodge Ram truck into Angel Renteria. Renteria was taken to a hospital with a brain bleed and brain swelling and placed in a medically induced coma.

Calderon fled the scene after the collision, the District Attorney’s Office said, before returning to the area and colliding with a Galt police patrol vehicle as officers were investigating the scene.

The investigation revealed that Calderon was drinking with her husband earlier in the day after she attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Calderon was convicted in March 2023 of felony DUI with injury, felony DUI with .08% or higher, felony hit and run causing serious and permanent injury.

Rhonda Campbell, a representative for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, called for “legislative action.”

“Maybe the public comes together and we work on making changes so that these things won’t happen to another victim family who has gone though literal hell,” Campbell said.

The California Department of Corrections issued a statement that Calderon would not be “paroled,” but transferred from prison to a supervised facility to continue serving prison time.

“This conditional placement is not a reward, and it does not minimize the participant crime nor the harm it caused,” the CDCR said in a statement to KCRA 3. “CDCR’s community reentry programs were developed to increase public safety by preparing participants to safely transition back into their communities once paroled. Studies have found these programs decrease recidivism, which increases public safety.”

According to the Corrections Department, Calderon has also served at the Puerta La Cruz Conservation Camp, a prison in San Diego, since Oct. 27, 2023, as support staff. Camp volunteers who work as support staff, but not a fire crew, received “day-for-day” credits, meaning they receive one day off their sentence for every one day they serve.

Ho, in his letter, said the release program needed to be reexamined, calling it a “deeply flawed policy.”

“CDCR claims that this program is not a reward, yet the reality is that Calderon’s release sends a clear message to victims like Angel and their families: The system values offender reintegration over victim justice,” Ho wrote.