3 College Students Killed by Hit-Run Driver in Bell : Crime: Witnesses chase and seize suspect. Police say he had stolen the car a short time earlier.

A man driving a stolen car ran down and killed three women college students in a crosswalk in Bell on Thursday morning, police said. They said the driver sped away, but his car--disabled in a subsequent crash--sputtered to a halt and he was grabbed by passersby and arrested by police in Huntington Park.

A fourth woman student struck in the crosswalk was injured but is expected to survive.

Officers said Carlos Manuel Ruiz de la Villa, 31, was involved in a series of hit-and-run accidents before and after he struck the young women at Gage and Woodward avenues about 6:50 a.m.

De la Villa, who apparently suffered minor injuries in the crashes, was taken to the jail ward at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where he was booked on three counts of vehicular homicide and one count of grand theft auto.

Bell police said the names of the victims--whose ages ranged from 18 to 25--were being withheld pending notification of their families.

De la Villa stole the car from a neighbor in Bell Gardens shortly after 6 a.m., police said. They said that when the neighbor’s brother-in-law gave chase, De la Villa sped west on Gage, eluding his pursuer but striking at least three cars as he entered the city of Bell.

Moments earlier, the four young women--all students at East Los Angeles Community College--had gotten off a bus at Woodward and Gage, witnesses said. Police said the students were heading across Gage in the crosswalk to catch another bus when the car driven by De la Villa slammed into them.

Scarcely slowing, the car continued west on Gage, crashing into a truck and another car a block to the west at Gage and Atlantic Boulevard, police said. They said that despite sustaining heavy damage, the car continued on for more than a mile before stalling in the city of Huntington Park.

There, witnesses who had taken up the chase grabbed De la Villa and held him until Huntington Park police arrived and placed him under arrest.

Residents of the neighborhood where the young women were struck down said the intersection of Gage and Woodward is especially dangerous because motorists who focus on the signal lights and traffic at the Atlantic Boulevard intersection a block away often overlook pedestrians in the Woodward Avenue crosswalk.

Jeff Squires, 28, who lives nearby, acted as an unofficial crossing guard Thursday afternoon, escorting children through the crosswalk as they walked home from Nueva Vista Elementary School.

“I’m just going to be here until all the kids are out of school,” he said.

The neighbors said Thursday’s tragedy would not soon be forgotten.

As night fell Thursday, candles illuminated a collection of flower arrangements placed around a tree near the crosswalk.