An 18-year-old man was killed and six others injured in a hit-and-run crash outside a Starbucks store in Los Angeles’ Chinatown neighborhood, authorities said Saturday.
Emergency crews were called to the crash scene at Broadway and Cesar Chavez Avenue just before 12:45 a.m., according to a Los Angeles Fire Department bulletin.
The rollover accident occurred when the vehicle carrying Cesar Chavez collided with a vehicle heading north on Broadway, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Kevin Tarzes said. An 18-year-old man who was a passenger in the car that was hit was pronounced dead at a hospital, Terzes said.
Police did not release the man’s name, but family members gathered at the intersection Saturday evening identified him as Rio Hondo University student Isaac Arellanes Jr.
A memorial for Isaac Arellanes Jr., 18, who was identified by his family as the man killed in an accident outside a Starbucks in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood on Saturday.
(David Zahnizer/Los Angeles Times)
Isaac Arellanes Sr. said he and his son, both trainees at Homeboy Industries, known for its gang intervention and rehabilitation programs, received their high school diplomas on the same day earlier this year. Since then, Arellanes said, his son had aimed to become an electrician and had young children of his own.
“I was very proud of him. I was hard on my son,” he said, standing near a makeshift memorial lined with candles, flowers and balloons. “He was the one I was most worried about.”
Family members gathered at the scene of the accident lined up pictures of Arellanes Jr. on a kiosk on the bus and shared a link to a GoFundMe page to pay for funeral expenses.
Six other people involved in the crash were also taken to hospitals, two with serious injuries and four with non-life-threatening injuries, Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said. Two people were trapped in the car and were rescued by firefighters.
Video broadcast by KTLA-TV showed one of the two vehicles lying upside down on the sidewalk next to the Starbucks’ outdoor patio area. The other Cesar Chavez was wrecked by a curb.
Crews responding to the accident used a crane to hoist the upside-down vehicle, according to video aired by KABC-TV.
Police spokesperson Terzes said the driver of the first vehicle fled the scene but has not been arrested.
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