3 Killed, 8 Hurt When Truck Hits Pedestrians

Three people were killed and eight others were injured Thursday when a speeding tow truck swerved onto a Vernon sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of people standing at an MTA bus stop, authorities said.

The accident occurred at 5:20 p.m. at Vernon and Santa Fe avenues, just moments after the tow-truck operator was involved in a hit-and-run accident on Pacific Boulevard, according to the Vernon Police Department.

In addition to the fatalities and injuries, the accident knocked out electricity in parts of the city, which is just southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Utility crews worked late into the evening to restore power.

“I was getting ready to eat my dinner and bang! .... I heard a big explosion,” said Tom Ybarra, 79, a resident of the neighborhood and a Vernon City Council member. Ybarra, who had been in his home when the crash occurred, ran outside and witnessed what one police officer described as a “horrendous crime scene.”

“There were people laying down on the street. There were three dead people. All the lights went out,” Ybarra said.

Moments before the accident, the tow truck had been traveling north at a high rate of speed along Pacific Boulevard, where it struck another vehicle, authorities said. No one was injured in that accident.

The truck then followed Pacific Boulevard as it curves west and becomes Vernon Avenue and approached an MTA bus parked at the curb near the intersection of Vernon and Santa Fe, said Vernon Police Lt. James Rodino.

Suddenly, the tow truck veered onto the sidewalk. It tore through the crowd of people, flinging some into the air, and scraped the side of the idling MTA bus.

After rolling through the crowd, the truck struck a power pole, shearing it off at the base, then collided with a second pole and came to a stop. The truck was demolished.

Artemio Carillo Ruiz, 38, of Culver City was in a pickup behind the bus on his way home from work when he “felt something pass by him real real fast, like a hundred miles an hour,” he said in Spanish. He then saw a shower of sparks.

Ruiz jumped from his pickup and ran to the sidewalk, where he began helping the injured. He said there were two people he recognized as being dead, one of whom was a woman pinned beneath the tow truck.

At least eight people were taken to County-USC Medical Center, along with the driver of the tow truck, who was described only as a man in his 20s or 30s.

Rodino said the man was in custody and would face charges in connection with the fatalities, speeding, hit-and-run and driving on a sidewalk.

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Times staff writer Monte Morin contributed to this report.