Police offer $25,000 reward to identify driver in street racing crash that left 2 girls in comas
A $25,000 reward is being offered for information to help identify one of the drivers involved in a hit-and-run street racing crash that seriously injured two 9-year-old girls earlier this week, the Los Angeles Police Department said Friday.
Shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, a black Chevy Camaro slammed into the side of a red Chevy sedan as it turned south on Hoover Street from westbound Florence Avenue in South Los Angeles. The Camaro was racing a black Ford Mustang at the time, and the driver of the Mustang fled the scene after the crash, police said.
The driver of the Camaro, 38-year-old Franklin Windom, was severely injured and hospitalized, police said. He has since been arrested on suspicion of engaging in a speed contest that caused injuries, according to Officer Drake Madison, an LAPD spokesman.
The driver of the Mustang remains at large. Authorities on Friday released video footage from the crash in an effort to identify the driver. The vehicle has black rims, a black rear wing spoiler and a light or tan interior, police said.
Los Angeles firefighters freed a 24-year-old woman and two 9-year-old girls from the sedan and took them to hospitals for treatment, authorities said.
The driver of the sedan, Jazmin Torres, told KTLA-TV Channel 5 that she was in the car with her daughter Ashley Gregorio and Ashley’s best friend, Delila Rangel, after they had finished baking gingerbread cookies together. Both girls are at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in medically induced comas.
“The car hits me, and I blacked out,” Torres told the station. “When I wake up, the car was destroyed and I see my daughter Ashley right next to me, unconscious.”
Delila’s mother, Lety Garcia, told the station that her daughter suffered a serious brain injury.
“The doctors are just asking us to be patient, which is all that they could offer us right now due to the head trauma that my baby has,” she said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Los Angeles police at (877) 527-3247. Tips also may be submitted anonymously to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.
Earlier this year a Times analysis of coroner’s records, police reports and media accounts found that at least 179 people died in crashes related to street racing in Los Angeles County from 2000 to 2017.
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
Twitter: @Hannahnfry
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