Hit And Run Drivers

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.

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 prosecutor told jurors Thursday that two septuagenarian women accused of killing homeless men so they could collect on their life insurance policies saw their victims as "profit," not human beings. "They picked up complete strangers, men who they did not love, men not related to them, men who could not offer them any kind of financial support because they were homeless and destitute, and made them worth millions if dead," Deputy Dist. Atty.

A Los Angeles Fire Department assistant chief, his wife and their son were charged Monday with allegedly trying to cover up a hit-and-run crash. Assistant Chief Robert Franco, 52, and his wife, Gerri Franco, 48, were charged with one misdemeanor count each of conspiracy, giving false information to an officer and obstructing an investigation involving their 19-year-old son.

Los Angeles police Saturday arrested an Inglewood man believed to be the driver of a Jaguar involved in a five-car, high-speed crash Friday night in which two people died in Baldwin Village. German Maximo, 22, was arrested at his home on suspicion of felony hit and run. He "fled the scene without rendering aid," said Los Angeles Police Officer Norma Eisenman.

A Los Angeles police officer assigned to the elite Metropolitan Division is under investigation for allegedly driving drunk, striking two pedestrians with his Hummer and then fleeing the scene, authorities said. William J. Skett, an eight-year Los Angeles Police Department veteran, was arrested June 20 by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at his home about 2:30 a.m., an hour after the pedestrians were injured in a Saugus parking lot.

Sequestered in a dank prison cell here, Ethiopia's biggest reggae star awaits trial in a deadly hit-and-run case that has galvanized the nation. Federal prosecutors say Tewodros Kassahun, dubbed the Bob Marley of Ethiopia, fled after striking a homeless boy with his BMW. They call it a case of celebrity bad behavior. Fans say the singer, also known as Teddy Afro, is being framed because of his music's perceived anti-government message.

A 21-year-old Anaheim man has been arrested in connection with the killing of Arthur Carmona, a Santa Ana man who had made headlines when he was freed from prison after being wrongfully convicted. After months of investigation, Santa Ana homicide detectives arrested Felix Abreu, 21, Thursday on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run driving, both felonies. Carmona, 26, was struck and killed as he ran from a party that had turned violent, authorities said.

An 11-month-old Pomona girl who suffered severe head injuries in a hit-and-run collision died Thursday after her family requested that she be taken off life support, hospital officials said. Alondra Kimberly Ibanez was injured when the car she was riding in on the northbound 71 Freeway was struck from behind Wednesday in Pomona by a pickup, authorities said. The driver of the truck remains at large, said California Highway Patrol Officer Edmund Zorrilla.

An elderly man was killed in a hit-and-run accident at the intersection of Harbor Boulevard and Orangewood Avenue on Wednesday evening, Anaheim police said. Police were seeking witnesses to the accident, which occurred about 8:50 p.m. No other details were immediately available.