A 24-year-old Chicago man pulled over to change a flat tire on I-80 near Torrence Avenue early on the morning of June 24. He never made it home. A semi-truck driven by 34-year-old Kulgeet Kang struck and killed Sebastian Stone on the shoulder of the suburban highway, and Kang kept driving.

Investigators now say Kang was looking at his cell phone when his rig hit Stone. He did not stop to render aid. He did not call 911. He did not remain at the scene. Hours later, after witnesses, license plate readers, dash cam footage, and phone records all pointed to the same truck, police caught up with Kang and placed him under arrest.

He faces charges of reckless homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Judge Rivanda Doss Beal granted the state's request to detain him. The name of the trucking company employing Kang has not been released, and, notably, his immigration status has not been disclosed by authorities.

How investigators tracked the truck

Witnesses who saw or heard the collision called police and provided critical details: a license plate number, the name of the trucking company, and a company identification number from the rig. By 9 a.m. that same morning, police had confirmed those witness accounts using license plate reader data.

Investigators then contacted the trucking company. Company officials tried to reach Kang by phone. He reportedly answered the call but hung up without speaking. He refused to pick up follow-up calls.

That evasion did not last long. Police combed through dash cam footage from Kang's truck and examined his phone records. Both corroborated what investigators already suspected: Kang had been on his phone at the moment of impact. He was located and arrested hours after the 9 a.m. confirmation of the witness evidence.

The speed of the investigation, from early-morning collision to same-day arrest, stands as a credit to the responding officers and the witnesses who stayed to provide information. Cases like this show what real accountability looks like when law enforcement has the tools and the will to act.

A young life cut short on the shoulder of a highway

Sebastian Stone was doing something millions of Americans have done: pulling off to the side of a highway to deal with a flat tire. It is one of the most routine, unglamorous roadside tasks imaginable. It should not carry a death sentence.

Stone was 24. The details of his life beyond his age and his Chicago roots are sparse in the public record so far. What is known is how he died, struck by a commercial vehicle whose driver could not be bothered to look up from his phone, and who then fled rather than face what he had done.

Kang's decision to leave the scene compounds the recklessness. A hit-and-run involving a fatality is not a lapse in judgment. It is a choice, a choice to abandon a dying or dead person on the side of a road and hope no one noticed. Witnesses noticed. Technology noticed. And now the courts will have their say.

The immigration question authorities won't answer

The original reporting on this case notes that Kang's name is of Punjabi origin and common among Sikh communities. Estimates from the North American Punjabi Truckers Association, cited by the Associated Press, suggest Sikh drivers make up roughly 40 percent of truck drivers on the West Coast and about 20 percent nationwide.

Those are significant numbers in a national trucking workforce, and they reflect a legal immigration pathway that has brought tens of thousands of drivers into the industry. No one disputes the right of lawful immigrants to work in the United States.

But the refusal to release Kang's immigration status raises a question that has become familiar in cases across the country: Why the silence? If Kang is in the country lawfully, saying so would settle the matter. If he is not, the public has a right to know, particularly when federal authorities have moved aggressively to hold accountable those who exploit the immigration system while committing serious crimes.

The information vacuum invites speculation that transparency would prevent. Prosecutors, law enforcement, and immigration officials all have access to Kang's records. Releasing his status would serve the public interest and remove ambiguity from a case that already carries enough weight on its own facts.

Distracted driving and the commercial trucking crisis

The allegation that Kang was looking at his cell phone when he struck Stone places this case squarely within a national problem that has resisted easy solutions. Distracted driving kills thousands of Americans every year. When the distracted driver is behind the wheel of a fully loaded semi-truck, the margin for error disappears entirely.

A commercial truck at highway speed is a lethal instrument. Drivers who operate them accept a heightened duty of care, a duty that, investigators say, Kang violated in the most basic way possible. He looked at his phone instead of the road.

The charges reflect the severity: reckless homicide is not a traffic citation. It is a criminal charge that carries real prison time. Combined with the charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, Kang faces the kind of legal consequences that the system is supposed to deliver when someone's negligence ends a life. Whether those consequences will be fully imposed remains an open question, one that the broader criminal justice system has not always answered well.

What remains unanswered

Several facts have not been made public. The trucking company's name has not been released, leaving open questions about its safety record, its hiring practices, and whether Kang held the proper commercial credentials to operate the vehicle. The specific court handling the case and the docket number are not yet in the public record.

It is also unclear whether bail was denied outright or set at a level Kang cannot meet. Judge Doss Beal granted the state's detention request, but the terms of that detention have not been detailed publicly.

The investigating law enforcement agency has not been named in available reporting. Whether state police, a county sheriff's office, or a local department led the arrest matters, particularly if federal immigration authorities need to be looped in. In an era when violent crime cases routinely raise questions about institutional coordination, the public deserves clarity on who is handling what.

Accountability starts with honesty

Sebastian Stone's family is owed answers. The public is owed transparency. A man is dead because a truck driver chose his phone over the road, and then chose flight over responsibility.

The criminal justice system now holds Kulgeet Kang. The charges are serious. The evidence, from dash cam footage to phone records to eyewitness accounts, appears substantial. What matters next is whether prosecutors and the courts treat this case with the gravity it demands, and whether the authorities still withholding Kang's immigration status decide that the public's right to know outweighs their preference for silence.

When officials won't answer a simple question about a suspect's legal status, the silence itself becomes the story, and not the kind that inspires public confidence.