BURLINGAME, Calif. (KRON) — Burlingame parents are seeking justice for their 4-year-old son, Ayden Everest Fang, who was killed outside a poke restaurant by a chain-reaction crash. The boy’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against the driver, the City of Burlingame, an 11-year-old electric bicycle rider, and the bicycle rider’s parents.

“This tragedy was preventable on multiple levels. Ignoring basic safety caused this result,” said the Fang family’s attorney, Niall McCarthy.

Ayden was playing with a friend outside Truffle Bar Restaurant in downtown Burlingame, with the friend’s father standing nearby, when an out-of-control SUV fatally struck the boy and crashed into the restaurant on August 8, 2025.

His horrified parents, Ming Fang and Ting Ting Liu, rushed out of the restaurant and found their beloved son deceased. A 6-year-old girl, who was also struck on the sidewalk, survived.

The wrongful death lawsuit details a chain of events leading up to the tragedy. At 6:20 p.m., a 19-year-old woman was driving a Mazda SUV and attempting to pull out from a city parking lot onto Donnelly Avenue. She was an inexperienced driver, and her view of oncoming traffic was obstructed by a vehicle parked at the driveway.

“At the same time, an 11-year-old boy was traveling eastbound on Donnelly Avenue on a Class 2 electric bicycle while carrying his 10-year-old sister as a passenger. An 11-year-old driving an e-bike and having a passenger were both prohibited by the e-bike’s user manual,” Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy law firm wrote.

According to the lawsuit, the boy failed to activate his brakes and his e-bike collided with the rear driver’s-side door of the SUV. The driver reacted by accidentally hitting her accelerator instead of the brake pedal. Her SUV accelerated across the roadway onto a sidewalk, ran over Ayden, and slammed through the front of the restaurant, the suit states.

“The crash resulted from multiple preventable failures,” the law firm wrote.

The e-bike rider’s parents should have known that their son was “incapable” of safely operating it on city streets, attorneys wrote.

The 19-year-old woman had limited driving experience when her parents allowed her to drive the SUV, the lawsuit claims. She also used a prescription drug that impairs judgment, “especially when driving,” the suit states.

No criminal charges will be filed against the teen driver, prosecutors said. The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office concluded that evidence gathered from the investigation was not sufficient to prove a vehicular manslaughter charge to a jury.

Ayden’s parents’ legal actions in civil court seek to hold defendants named in the lawsuit accountable for alleged negligence, as well as prevent another tragedy.

Ming Fang said, “Our sincere hope in bringing this case is that we will make our community safer for other families.”

A vehicle that blocked the SUV driver’s view was legally parked on a public street within a spot that should have been removed by the city, the suit claims. The parking spot allegedly created dangerous visibility conditions.

The lawsuit states, “Ayden’s death was preventable. Each of the defendants had a role in causing this life-ending event. The city was on notice that this specific driveway on Donnelly was the source of multiple near-misses and posed a threat to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians on Donnelly and the sidewalk.”

Ayden was a bright student and the youngest to enroll in his Montessori school. He loved reading, singing, painting, and spending time with his family and classmates.

The boy had started the Burlingame public library’s “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” reading challenge, and he had just finished his first 100, according to his family. Ayden never had a chance to turn in his list of completed books. His grieving family created a Little Free Library on Donnelly Avenue near where the boy died.

Little Ayden’s sudden death sent shockwaves through a tight-knit community. Hundreds of community members and police officers attended a vigil in Burlingame last year to honor his life and memory.

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