A California man accused of killing three teenagers after plowing his car into them after they had rang his doorbell as a prank has been convicted of murder. 

Anurag Chandra, 45, was convicted of murder on Friday after an incident in 2020 when he responded to a “ding dong ditch” prank by chasing six teenagers in his vehicle and smashing into their Toyota Prius. The Prius was forced off the road, and three 16-year-old boys were killed and three others were injured when they hit a tree. 

“The murder of these young men was a horrendous and senseless tragedy for our community,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said. “This is an important step toward justice.”

The incident happened on January 19, 2020 and occurred in Temescal Valley. Chandra said that he was “extremely, extremely mad” and that had believed that his family might be in danger after his doorbell rang and one of the teens exposed his backside. 

Daniel Hawkins, Drake Ruiz, and Jacob Ivascu were all killed after Chandra struck them after driving up to 99 miles per hour, according to court testimony. According to Chandra, he did not intentionally hit the Prius but rammed into it after it had hit the brakes. 

“I whipped into my window and I blacked out and then I remember I woke up on the floor,” said Sergio Campusano, who was driving the car. “I don’t remember how I got there. I was shaking.”

During the trial, Chandra said that he had drunk 12 beers over a period of 2.5 hours before the doorbell prank. After hitting the Prius, he returned home and did not check to see if the boys were alright. Police say that they found his license plate at the scene. 

“We are happy to see justice was served even though in this day and age it is hard to come by,” Alex Ivascu, the father of two of the victims, told The Press-Enterprise. “But we had a reasonable jury that looked at the facts and realized that the facts speak louder than words — or lying words from the defendant.”

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“He has his right to a day in court but the constant lying was so ludicrous,” Craig Hawkins, another father of two of the victims, said. “He said such preposterous things. Here is a guy who we think murdered our sons, and he takes no ownership. No contrition. That’s so insulting.”

Chandra, who will be sentenced in July, faces life in prison without parole. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is having a bit of an illegal immigration emergency in his city and is now blaming the Biden administration for the near-constant influx of foreign nationals to the Big Apple. But, as Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) pointed out, Adams and like-minded Big Government liberals are at fault for incentivizing this crisis in the first place.

Recently, Adams said point-blank that the president’s policies have strained his city and thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children have arrived via buses and other means. In turn, at least one Republican lawmaker took that as a sign that Adams could be a willing partner to secure the border.

“The dam finally broke last week when Mayor Adams rightly blamed the border and migrant crisis on President Biden,” Congressman Mike Lawler, (R-NY) said to POLITICO.

Lawler now sees a chance for bipartisanship — which as a reminder, tends to mean that The Swamp gets what it wants while U.S. citizens get screwed over.

“This administration has been asleep at the wheel on border security, and it has had a tremendous, negative impact on New York City,” Lawler added. “I would be more than happy to work in a bipartisan way with the mayor to force President Biden to secure our borders and reform the immigration system.”

Yet Adams’ solutions to the problem will only exacerbate it. He doesn’t want to deport these individuals nor close the border — his office believes that more federal aid is needed to help bear the brunt of the cost of providing food, shelter, clothing, education and other benefits to illegal aliens from around the globe. Don’t take my word for it, listen to Adams’ press secretary.

“Anyone falsely accusing Mayor Adams of using Republican rhetoric should stop criticizing the one person doing more than anyone else in this city for migrants and start pushing for more aid from Washington, DC and Albany,” New York mayoral Press Secretary Fabien Levy said in a statement to POLITICO.

Levy pointed out that Adams continues to welcome these individuals to the city that never sleeps.

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“To personally show his support for asylum seekers, Mayor Adams has organized haircuts for migrants, book donations for kids, and clothing drives, as well as slept besides migrants at a humanitarian relief center while spending hours hearing their personal stories,” Levy added.

Lawler has also voiced support for more federal funding to localities such as New York City and elsewhere while advocating amnesty for certain illegal immigrants.

The second part of his multi-pronged plan released in March said, “we have to create a pathway to legalization — for some that will mean citizenship, for others it won’t.”

Amnesty will only encourage more individuals to come over the border, in hopes of securing their spot in America to get a headstart on that “pathway to citizenship.”

So, while Republicans like Lawler look at Adams’ comments as encouraging, others such as Roy don’t seem too impressed with the mayor.

“Eric Adams is right to blame the Biden Administration for the border crisis, but this is the same guy who campaigned on his city’s sanctuary status and extended childcare, colleague classes and other taxpayer-funded programs to illegal migrants,” Roy told POLITICO.

Indeed, Adams told the entire world they could find refuge in his city in 2019:

Make no mistake, New York City will ALWAYS stand up to @realDonaldTrump and call out his cynical plots to divide our country. To anyone in the world fleeing hatred and oppression, the ultimate city of immigrants wants you to remember: you’re ALWAYS welcome here. pic.twitter.com/H9xOYz5mJe

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) April 16, 2019

As mayor, he has cut funding for other areas of public life to provide for the illegal aliens he welcomed.

“Texas has been bearing the brunt of this crisis for over two years — now New York is getting a taste of their own medicine,” Roy added

The Lone Star State congressman is right. And that burden will continue so long as Democratic policies that reward illegal immigration while allowing the border to be a sieve will continue.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.