Story highlights
A seller claims to have found items at Walker crash site
Rep for auction site said sunglasses match photo of actor
Police told LA Weekly they doubt glasses are authentic
Some fans are upset about an auction of items alleged to have been taken from the site of a fatal crash that killed “Fast & Furious” star Paul Walker.
A pair of of Maui Jim sunglasses purported to have been worn by Walker during the crash, a fire extinguisher and and an alleged piece of debris from the accident scene have been put up for auction on BidAMI.com. According to a description on the site, the consigner of the lot of items up for auction was nearby when the fiery crash occurred on November 30, 2013, in the Santa Clarita, California, community of Valencia.
The lot consigner collected the items “once the site investigation was cleared with car debris hauled away and tape taken down,” according to the description.
“As the consigner walked the scene in disbelief and grief, he found a pair of sunglasses nearby in the ivy,” a description of the auction items on the site notes. “After showing one of the officers, he was waved off. The glasses were dirty so he wrapped them in a handkerchief and put them in his pocket.”
Walker and friend Roger Rodas died after the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT Rodas was driving slammed into a light pole and burst into flames.
The New York Daily News reported that a rep from the auction site said the authenticity of the glasses was determined by the company using photos of Walker from the day of the crash. CNN has reached out for comment, but has not confirmed that the glasses did indeed belong to Walker.
The sale announcement apparently garnered so much traffic that the BidAMI site crashed on Thursday. A Change.org petition has been started to stop the sale, and some fans have reacted negatively on Twitter.
User Chloe Dawn tweeted, “Someone is selling the sunglasses Paul Walker was wearing when he died. So disrespectful… what is wrong with people?” The founder and editor-in-chief of the celebrity site Rickey.org tweeted, “Some terrible person is selling the sunglasses that #PaulWalker was supposedly wearing when he died.”
LA Weekly reported that police are doubtful that the glasses actually are those worn by Walker when he died.
“As a department we doubt that they are actually Paul Walker’s sunglasses,” a spokesman for the Santa Clarita sheriff’s department told the publication. “But who knows, maybe they are. Right now we doubt it.”
At the time of his death, Walker was filming “Fast & Furious 7,” the latest in the very successful franchise that made him a star. On Thursday, Universal confirmed that filming of movie would resume March 31 in Atlanta, Georgia. The studio had earlier said they don’t plan to kill Walker’s character in the movie, but will instead “retire” him.