Hit And Run Drivers

A Brentwood middle school was enveloped in grief Friday after a 13-year-old girl was fatally injured when she was struck by two hit-and-run drivers as she walked to a school bus filled with classmates. Julia Siegler, an eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake Middle School, was rushed to UCLA Medical Center, where she died. Authorities said the girl was crossing Sunset Boulevard against a red light at Cliffwood Drive about 7:20 a.m. when she was struck, first by a Toyota Highlander and then by an Infiniti.

For more than three decades, Carlos Perez toiled at a downtown produce market to make a better life for his family. A proud and jovial father and grandfather, he would head to work when most Angelenos were still asleep. He would park his car in a lot on the east side of Alameda Street and walk across the wide lanes to start his 3 a.m. shift as a supervisor and driver at I&T Produce Co. But Monday, the 59-year-old Whittier man was struck mid-street by a car with an impact so hard that shards of glass scattered everywhere from broken headlights, and the car's skirting tore off. The driver of the dark Infiniti G35 sedan, which had been traveling north, sped away and disappeared.

Milton Augusto Lopez could have been just another tragic statistic, one of an untold number of people killed every year by hit-and-run drivers who are never brought to justice. But family and friends of Lopez, a 38-year-old Reseda man who was killed Dec. 18 in the Canoga Park-Winnetka area, are trying to change that.

A husband and wife pleaded no contest Thursday in connection with a hit-and-run crash that killed a USC student and severely injured another as they walked home last year from a fraternity party near campus. The incident generated outrage after witnesses reported seeing a passenger in the couple's car hauling the body of the injured student out of the vehicle's broken windshield and dumping him onto the sidewalk before the car sped off. Authorities alleged that the couple's sedan ran a red light and struck Adrianna Bachan and Marcus Garfinkle in a crosswalk near campus on March 29. Bachan, 18, died from massive head injuries.

California Highway Patrol officials Monday were searching for two hit-and-run drivers who struck and killed a homeless man near Fontana on Sunday. Manuel Frias Vera, 35, was hit by a station wagon as he tried to cross Foothill Boulevard in an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County about 8:15 p.m. Sunday. The impact tossed Vera to the other side of the four-lane highway, where he was struck by an SUV, said CHP Officer Jessie Holguin.

A 4-year-old boy was killed Saturday night when he was struck by two hit-and-run drivers in El Sereno, leaving shocked and outraged relatives and friends wondering Sunday why the motorists didn't stop to help. "If [the motorists] have families of their own, they know this could happen," the boy's grandmother, Maria Vazquez, said in Spanish, fighting back tears. "Look at what happened to my grandson. He was a good, happy boy." The woman, comforted by neighbor Priscilla Bravo, couldn't go on.

A third person was indicted Thursday in the case of a homeless man who was hit by a car and left lodged in the windshield until he died. Herbert Cleveland, 24, was charged with helping dump the man's body in Cobb Park to try to conceal the alleged hit and run. According to police, Chante Mallard told investigators she was returning from a nightclub Oct. 26 when she hit Gregory Biggs.

A Laguna Niguel woman was killed late Thursday night when the car she was riding in veered off Camino Capistrano into an orange grove and became entangled in a chain-link fence. Maryfrancis Pulvino, 51, was declared dead at the scene of massive head injuries, said Stephen D. Eicherly, a deputy coroner. Police called in a Sheriff's Department canine unit to hunt for the driver of the 1971 Chevrolet El Camino. James Joseph Robertson, 39, of Laguna Niguel tried to flee on foot, said Lt. Richard J.

An elderly man on a morning stroll Friday was struck and killed by a hit-and-run motorist, police said. Kentaro Morioka, 78, of West Los Angeles was crossing Bundy Drive at Ohio Avenue when he was hit about 5:15 a.m. The accident occurred a few blocks from Morioka's Bundy Drive residence. The driver fled and was being sought.

An unidentified driver fled Saturday night after his truck smashed into an unoccupied California Highway Patrol car at a traffic stop on eastbound Katella Avenue, authorities said. The driver of a red Mazda pickup rear-ended the CHP car at 8:49 p.m. while the officer was talking to a driver he had stopped, said Officer T.T. O'Toole. The CHP car was parked in the slow lane with its directional lights on, O'Toole said.

A Brentwood middle school was enveloped in grief Friday after a 13-year-old girl was fatally injured when she was struck by two hit-and-run drivers as she walked to a school bus filled with classmates. Julia Siegler, an eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake Middle School, was rushed to UCLA Medical Center, where she died. Authorities said the girl was crossing Sunset Boulevard against a red light at Cliffwood Drive about 7:20 a.m. when she was struck, first by a Toyota Highlander and then by an Infiniti.

A 30-year-old woman with a suspended driver's license was booked on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter Friday in a hit-and-run accident that claimed the life of a USC student and left another severely injured. Claudia Cabrera of South Los Angeles was arrested Thursday evening after a massive search by scores of detectives, apparently aided by a $235,000 reward in the case. Driving near the university with her husband and 7-month-old baby, Cabrera allegedly ran a red light about 3 a.m.

The death of a USC student and the critical injury of another in a violent hit-and-run accident left the urban campus reeling Monday as authorities and relatives called on the public for help in locating the driver and the badly damaged car. "We need to find the vehicle," said LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese. "We need to find it quickly." The accident, which occurred at the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Hoover Street at 3 a.m.

An off-duty Los Angeles police officer in San Diego County fired his handgun at a vehicle he said was about to run him down after a hit-and-run, officials said Monday. Officer Ramon Zepeda of the 77th Division was westbound on Interstate 8, near Alpine, about 8:30 p.m. Sunday when a Ford sedan rear-ended his vehicle and kept driving, according to Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Ana Aguirre. Zepeda followed the vehicle, which contained two men and a woman, in an effort to get a license plate number, police said.

More than 300 passengers arriving from Japan on Sunday were held on board the jumbo jet at Los Angeles International Airport for a short time while paramedics determined that a passenger did not have a contagious illness. United Airlines Flight 890 informed ground crews shortly before touching down at 8:30 a.m. that a 28-year-old man aboard the aircraft was sick and might have some sort of virus, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Cecil Manresa. Los Angeles city paramedics and personnel from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boarded the Boeing 747 after it landed.

Police were searching Thursday for the driver in a hit-and-run accident that left a 38-year-old transient with a broken jaw. Officers called to the accident at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday found victim Lester James Minor lying face down in front of the Big 5 Sporting Goods store at 2320 S. Harbor Blvd., said Investigator Robert DePaola. Minor was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange for treatment of the broken jaw and abrasions on his head, chest, right arm and abdomen.