Tragedy and Miracle: Death, Birth Visit Hooper Avenue District

The corner of 34th Street and Hooper Avenue is a neighborhood where people know each other by face or name, where people hang out watching the street.

On Saturday, the day Margarita Espino’s son was killed and her daughter was born, Espino’s neighbors did more than watch. When an accused drunk driver crashed into the pregnant Espino and her two sons and then tried to flee on foot, outraged onlookers chased him down, dragged him back to the accident scene and held him for police.

The man, Ascencion Diaz, 31, of Los Angeles, was booked for investigation of vehicular homicide and driving under the influence, Los Angeles police said. He was being treated for undisclosed injuries in the hospital ward at Los Angeles County Jail.

“It was terrible,” one resident, who declined to give her name, said softly in Spanish. “At least they caught the driver. The one little boy was trapped under the car. The other boy was next to his mother crying. He was saying, ‘Mama, get up, get up.’ ”

The woman said she often saw Espino and her children walking in the area.

The accident killed Espino’s son Evillado, 7. The 34-year-old Espino, who was 8 months pregnant, was rushed to County-USC Medical Center, where doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section and delivered a seven-pound baby girl.

The infant was in good condition Sunday along with her mother, who suffered a pelvic fracture. Espino’s 4-year-old son, Elvis, was treated for superficial injuries.

Friends and relatives gathered Sunday at a small house on 28th Street across from the home of Espino and her husband, Jose, who they said works at home as a tailor. Children played in the front yard while the adults talked about what they called both a tragedy and a miracle.

At about 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Espino and her sons were walking south on Hooper to the home of a neighborhood partera , a midwife, who was going to check the progress of Espino’s pregnancy, said Florentino Espino, Margarita’s brother. Jose remained at home, working.

According to the accounts of witnesses and relatives, Espino told Evillado to tie his shoe and the boy stopped and knelt down. At that point, a car sped south on Hooper north of 34th Street, careened across the opposing lanes and jumped the curb onto the sidewalk.

The impact sent Margarita and Elvis flying; the car ended up wedged between a telephone pole and a cement wall, with Evillado trapped beneath the vehicle.

“If it wasn’t for the pole, they all would have been killed,” said a family friend, who declined to give his name but said he was from Union de Guerro, the Mexican village from which the Espino family had come to Los Angeles.

Diaz got out of the car and ran down 34th Street, witnesses said, pursued by several men who caught him and held him until authorities arrived.

“There was a big crowd screaming and yelling, people crying,” said another witness. “The one tall black guy was holding onto him (Diaz). There was another guy trying to hit (Diaz), but the people were holding him back.”

Crowd Grew Angry

“They were very angry,” Los Angeles city paramedic supervisor John Green said. “He (Diaz) had bruises on him. I’m not sure if that was from the accident or something else.”

Green praised those who caught the suspect and others who tried to help the injured as paramedics worked for five minutes to free Evillado from beneath the extremely hot exhaust pipe of the wrecked car.

“We couldn’t raise the car up because it was stuck between the wall and the telephone pole,” Green said. “The paramedics were trying to untangle the child from the pipe, give him some air. It took about five minutes to get him out.”

The boy was rushed to California Hospital, where he died.

Relatives said Jose Espino spent the day Sunday at the bedside of his wife and new daughter, who does not yet have a name.

Meanwhile, no one in the neighborhood seemed to know the names of the men who caught Diaz and who cried for the shattered family on Hooper Avenue.