Emotions High, Versions Vary in Girl’s Traffic Death : Accident: Police seek driver of car that struck child in South-Central. Woman reportedly was attacked by a mob.

Six-year-old Rebeca Velazquez lost her life on South-Central’s unforgiving streets, where justice often is elusive and truth comes in many shades of gray.

The tiny first-grader, who had a penchant for Barbies, pink bows and braids, was struck by a car as she darted across Compton Avenue, anxious to find a bathroom while running errands with her father.

For a few explosive minutes in this mostly Latino neighborhood, an angry mob surrounded the black driver and peppered her with racial epithets. But the woman, thought to be in her early 30s, managed to slip back behind the wheel and speed away from the Sunday afternoon crowd. The next morning, doctors disconnected Rebeca’s life-support machine.

It may never be known who the driver was, or whether she fled because of fear or guilt. The California Highway Patrol would like to question her, though officers said Tuesday they believe the incident was an accident. On this stretch of asphalt, flanked by auto shops, check cashing outlets and an array of unlicensed vendors, the version of events changes with each eyewitness account.

Some say the driver stepped out of her blue 1970s Chevrolet station wagon only after several men in the neighborhood noticed she had no license plates and ran to block her way. They recall her as aggressive, possibly intoxicated, with a tattoo on her neck, berating the fallen child for dashing into her path.

“She came out screaming, in English--who knows what she was saying--but she was angry and she wanted to run away,” said Rosario Serrano, 58, who lives just a few feet from where Rebeca landed, in an apartment protected by an iron grate. “She was waving her arms trying to get away. They just wanted to hold her until the police could come.”

Others insist the driver stopped voluntarily, but grew defensive after she was accosted by the menacing crowd. They remember about 30 men in the street, pushing her, tugging her shirt, shouting derogatory words. When she finally made it back to the safety of her car, where they say she had two small children, someone started hurling bottles and tried to chase her down.

“Man, they wanted to kill that black girl,” said Jorge Luis Guzman, 27, manager of the nearby El Carnal muffler shop. “They tried to get her out of the car, to do something bad to her, they were so mad.”

From the perspective of his welding bench a few storefronts away, Carlos Orduno offered another version. He saw negligence on both sides--the driver for leaving the scene of a fatal accident and the girl’s father for letting her cross a heavily trafficked street alone.

“It was an error for that lady to go--that was wrong--but she was probably scared and it’s natural for anyone to look out for their own safety,” said Orduno, 53. “But I also don’t think that girl should have been crossing the street. It was so sad to see that tiny little thing lying there, but I wondered how could her father have left her alone like that.”

Rebeca’s father, Hector Velazquez, sat Tuesday on a plastic-covered couch in the living room of his small bungalow in Watts, trying to make sense of the split-second that cost his daughter’s life.

She was a sentimental girl, he said, pointing out a bedroom covered with frilly pink lace and a wall decorated with three wooden figurines spelling out “Hope, Charity, Faith.” Often she retreated there to watch her Spanish-language soap operas in peace, or play with her prized Barbie, which is perched in the back of a doll-size horse-drawn carriage, her head shrouded in a pink polka-dotted veil.

Moreover, he said, she understood well the rules of crossing the street. “She knew, she knew,” said Velazquez, a 38-year-old forklift driver, as he comforted his wife, Ana Maria, and their 5-year-old son, Hector Jr. “I always told her, ‘Stop. Look both ways.’ If she had seen a car, she wouldn’t have crossed.”

On Sunday, they had spent the day running errands, first dropping off his wife at a swap meet, then taking Rebeca’s grandmother home. Before picking them up again, Velazquez s aid, he decided to stop at a catering truck in the Florence district that sells seafood prepared in the style of his native Mexican state, Nayarit.

He left the girl in the car, which he parked on the west side of Compton Avenue, just north of Gage Avenue. He crossed to the east side and placed his order, but began to question whether it had been a wise idea to leave Rebeca alone. As he stepped to the curb, he saw her wriggling uncomfortably outside the car, clearly needing to use the bathroom.

Before he could say anything, she walked into the street. He swears she looked both ways, but the car slammed into her 65-pound frame before he could speak. The speed limit on Compton Avenue is 30 m.p.h., but CHP officers say they have no way of knowing how fast the southbound car was traveling. No paint or glass fragments were left behind and the skid marks are very light.

“There was nothing at the scene to give us any indication of anything,” said Officer Rick Rodriguesa CHP spokesman. The driver, who he said had been dressed in yellow, “doesn’t appear to be at fault for anything. But we would like to talk to her, just to identify her and get a statement.”

All Velazquez knows is that his daughter fell limp on the street. He raced to cradle her in his arms, but there were no visible signs of life. If someone could be held responsible, he said, it would be a small solace. But he knows it is unlikely.

“Besides,” he said, his eyes red from tears and sleepless nights, “what would it solve? My daughter’s dead, that’s all. Now I have to bury her.”