Timothy Albo was there, standing uneasily between his mother and father and three sisters and three brothers. It was really good to see him.
You may remember the story. He was walking with a friend last October and was about to legally cross at the light at 20th Street and Chestnut Place downtown when a silver Chrysler PT Cruiser suddenly appeared.
It knocked Tim Albo high in the air. Heather Kornman flew right behind him. The speeding PT Cruiser, never slowing, disappeared up the street.
Police several days later found the PT Cruiser and its owner, Brandon Mondragon, 21, and arrested him.
He was due in court today for sentencing, having pleaded guilty in February to a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident. He was expected to receive six months in jail with work release, four years on probation and 300 hours of community service.
It is why Tim Albo and his family came to the west steps of the Capitol on Saturday afternoon.
The family is seeking the public’s help in changing the law and the penalty for hit-and-run, to avoid travesties like the slap on the wrist Mondragon will receive for hitting and leaving in the street two human beings.
About 60 other people joined with the Albo family at the Capitol, each of them wearing white “Time For Change” T-shirts. On the back it read, “Every Day Is Better Than The Last.”
It is what the Albos would always tell others about the days after the accident, said the man’s sister, Pam Albo, who flew in from her home in Las Vegas for the rally and the sentencing.
“It has become our family mantra,” she said.
“We’re upset,” Rodney Albo, Tim’s older brother, told the crowd. “So much of his life is now ruined. But today we are just starting. We are going to make a change in state law.”
State Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, in comments before the rally said she came to support the family.
“It reminds me of my situation, where a young man tries to get away with murder, just going home acting like nothing had happened.”
Her son, Javad Marshall- Fields was gunned down in 2005 along with his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, to prevent him from testifying at trial in a gang murder case. Two men have been sentenced to death for their murders.
“No one should have to experience what you did and not have justice served,” Fields told the family during the rally, promising them she would work “extremely hard” in the legislature to amend the penalty for hit-and-run.
“It is a fracture in our system, and we need to fill that gap,” she said.
Twenty people have been killed or seriously injured by hit-and-run drivers in metro Denver since Tim Albo and Heather Kornman were struck Oct. 3, a remarkably gruesome, almost unfathomable number.
Tim Albo, once an electrician, waited until the end of the rally to say a few words.
He remains in physical rehabilitation three days a week.
“He is struggling to remember who he is,” Pam Albo told me. His frontal lobe brain injury, she said, has pretty much wiped out six years of memory.
“He can remember things now from two days ago, for example,” she said, “but not remember what he had today for breakfast. It is going to take a while.”
Finally, Tim Albo stepped forward.
His head and face still bear the scars from the injuries and the surgeries he underwent in October. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and smiled an almost embarrassed smile.
“Thank you for coming,” he told the crowd, immediately turning to and hugging his family.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
