Parlier mother pleads for accountability after teen killed in suspected DUI crash

Eloisa Quiroz spent her first Mother’s Day without her 15-year-old son, Juliani Moreno Guillén, turning a private day of grief into a public demand for accountability after the March 10 crash in Parlier that police say involved an impaired driver. Moreno was walking with his girlfriend near Mendocino Avenue and Parlier Avenue when a vehicle struck him, and surveillance footage later showed the car continuing into the front landscaping of Francy’s Bridal Flower Shop and More after the impact.

Police identified the driver as Tiffany Mercado, 35, and investigators estimated she was traveling at least 60 mph at the time of the collision. Other court reporting later said prosecutors believed the speed may have been closer to 80 to 100 mph. Mercado was arrested March 11, booked into Fresno County Jail and later appeared in Fresno County Superior Court, where she entered a not-guilty plea. Local reporting also said she had been on parole and had been released from a 2024 prison sentence tied to assault and robbery convictions.

Quiroz has tried to channel that grief into pressure on the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, asking residents to write letters or send emails demanding the strongest possible charges and urging prosecutors not to cut a deal that would weaken accountability. Parlier’s mayor publicly offered to write a letter in support of the family, while the city has also seen an outpouring of grief, including a memorial on March 14 that drew hundreds and a car-detailing fundraiser organized to help Moreno’s family.

The case landed in a county already struggling with deadly roads. Fresno County’s own traffic safety page says the county has among the highest traffic fatalities in the state and notes that fatal collisions are often caused by drivers who are impaired, distracted or speeding. In 2023, the county recorded 5,377 victims in fatal and injury crashes, including 760 victims in alcohol-involved crashes, which works out to about two alcohol-involved victims a day and nearly 15 people a day hurt or killed in fatal-and-injury crashes. The same statewide rankings showed 923 speed-related victims in the county, a reminder that the crash that killed Moreno fit into a broader pattern residents are being asked to confront.