Minnesota Parents Relive Easter Crash That Killed Their Kids in Drag Race

A Minnesota state trooper showed up at Veronica Ford's house on April 4, 2021, to tell her that her son, Dalton Ford, and his girlfriend, Tayler Garza, had been killed in a car crash. Investigators later determined the crash was the result of illegal drag racing. Five years on, Ford and Tayler's father, Brandon Garza, are speaking out publicly to ask drivers to slow down, pay attention, wear their seat belts, and never drive impaired.

The families' appeal appears in a video posted by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety on Facebook, in which Ford and Garza describe the day officers arrived to deliver the news and the anger that followed. Dalton Ford, 22, had recently earned his associate degree in automotive technology from Dunwoody College, while Tayler Garza, also 22, was working as a certified nursing assistant and a Target team lead while taking nursing classes, according to the department's account of their case.

Both were killed on Easter Sunday 2021 in a crash tied directly to street racing, a case that moved through Dakota County courts over the following two years and ended with prison sentences for both drivers involved.

Crash Reconstruction Showed Speeds Above 100 MPH

State crash reconstruction found that the Chrysler 200 that collided with the victims' car was traveling between 93 and 100 mph at the moment of impact, and had reached up to 114 mph just five seconds earlier, in a posted 50 mph zone on County Road 42, according to FOX 9. A Dakota County jury found 20-year-old Camille Dennis-Bond guilty in December 2022 of two counts of third-degree murder, two counts of criminal vehicular homicide, and criminal vehicular operation for her role in the drag race that preceded the collision, per the station's reporting.

Dennis-Bond's brother, Leon Bond, was 17 at the time of the crash and was prosecuted under Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction. He pleaded guilty in January 2023 to two counts of third-degree murder for driving the Chrysler 200 that struck the victims' car, according to KARE 11. Dennis-Bond was sentenced that March in Dakota County District Court to 15 years in prison, with 10 years to be served in correctional facility custody and five years on supervised release, the Pierce County Journal reported.

Speed Remains a Leading Killer on Minnesota Roads

Under Minnesota law, criminal vehicular homicide is a felony that carries statutory penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 per count, as Hoodline previously reported in the context of a separate fatal crash. The penalties reflect how seriously the state treats reckless driving that results in death, though families like the Fords and Garzas say the sentences do not undo the loss.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety says preliminary 2025 data show speed-related crashes killed 102 people statewide that year, even as officers issued more than 160,000 speeding citations. Overall traffic fatalities in Minnesota actually dropped 22 percent in 2025, to 370 deaths from 475 in 2024, marking the state's lowest annual toll since 2019. But speed continues to be one of what the department calls the state's four primary crash factors, alongside impairment, distraction, and failure to wear a seat belt, particularly during the so-called “100 Deadliest Days” between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

The pattern is not unique to Minnesota. Nationally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 28 percent of all U.S. traffic fatalities in 2023 were speeding-related, and 19 percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes were traveling at unsafe speeds.

A Message Rooted in Personal Loss

For Ford and Garza, the campaign is not about statistics but about the moment their lives changed. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety's video shows the parents recounting how a police officer arrived at Ford's house to deliver the news, and how grief gave way to anger as details of the drag race emerged. Their message to drivers is direct and repeated throughout the department's outreach: never speed, never drive impaired, pay attention to the road, and wear a seat belt.

Both families describe the crash that killed Dalton Ford and Tayler Garza as an unacceptable outcome of a choice made by other drivers on the road that day. Their appeal, five years later, is an attempt to keep other parents from receiving the same visit they did.