30 Injured as RTD Bus Is Struck, Hits Building : Witnesses Say Car Ran Light Before Slamming Vehicle Into Skid Row Mission

At least 30 people were injured in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday when a car apparently ran a red light and broadsided an RTD bus, slamming the bus into the side of a Skid Row mission, police said. None of the injured were seriously hurt.

Witnesses said a 1973 Cadillac, traveling “at a rather high rate of speed,” struck the bus shortly before noon as it crossed the intersection of 5th and Towne streets.

The bus, carrying about 35 passengers, careened into a partially windowed wall of the American Soul Clinic Mission, ripping a 13-foot-wide gash in the wall and narrowly missing a workman inside. Shards of glass were sent flying into the street.

Passenger Miguel Rodezno, 80, who was sitting near the front of the bus as it entered the intersection, said: “Our driver had the green light and was in the intersection when that car came out of nowhere. It seemed like the Cadillac never bothered to stop.”

Speaking in Spanish, Rodezno said passengers were thrown to the floor by the shock of the collision. “It was like an explosion,” he said.

Nearly everyone on the bus was slightly injured, said Los Angeles Police Capt. Ernest Curtsinger. Orange mats were rolled out on an adjacent sidewalk where teams of paramedics examined the many injured and dispatched them to nearby hospitals.

Bus driver Frank Richardson, 54, a 25-year RTD employee, was treated for a cut knee at California Hospital. The driver of the car, identified by authorities at County-USC Medical Center as Charles Crenshaw, 28, was treated for cuts and bruises.

Police said later that Crenshaw would be cited for running a red light, but added that the initial investigation indicated the accident was caused by the failure of his car’s brakes.

Most of the others hurt, including a handful of people standing on the sidewalk when the bus plowed toward them, received cuts, bruises and possible broken bones. Firefighters transported the injured, several of them in back braces and on gurneys, to five Los Angeles hospitals.

Had the driver not headed his bus toward the wall, the number of injured could have been greater, police said.

“I have to tip my hat to the bus driver,” Curtsinger said. “He probably decided to avoid hitting (more) people and used the sidewalk instead--the path of least resistance.”

Tom Payette, 64, a mission employee, was in the front of the building cleaning tables when the bus crashed into the wall. He escaped with only a minor scrape on his nose.

“I thought it was an earthquake, it made such a rumble,” Payette said. “I looked up, I saw the bus and the two plate glass windows came flying in. . . . It gave me goose bumps.”

Miguel Olivas, 18, of Whittier, who was on the bus, said “women were screaming” when the accident occurred. “The old man next to me fell into the aisle. . . . I was pretty scared.”

Aida Canela, 26, was walking down the sidewalk with her 5-year-old daughter, Concha, when “I saw the bus coming toward us.” Canela said she started screaming and tried to run but the bus “was traveling right at us. The next thing I knew I was on the ground.”

Canela and her daughter, whose playsuit was splatted with blood, were taken to County-USC. The mother suffered possible back and neck injuries while the little girl received minor cuts.

The bus was en route from Los Angeles to the Brea Mall.

Times staff writers Patricia Hurtado and Lenore Look contributed to this story.