LAPD Officer Killed in Crash : Accident: Rookie patrolman dies and his partner is injured. Driver of vehicle that broadsided police car also dies.

A rookie Los Angeles police officer was killed and his partner was seriously injured early Saturday when a speeding Acura ran a red light at a foggy intersection and broadsided their patrol car, authorities said. The female driver of the Acura Integra was also killed in the fiery crash.

Officer Gabriel Perez-Negron, 31, died of massive head injuries inside the patrol car. His training officer, Martin Guerrero, 35, a six-year LAPD veteran who was driving the vehicle, was being treated Saturday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center for broken ribs and back injuries, police said.

The identity of the woman was not released because her relatives had not been notified. Perez-Negron, who graduated from the Police Academy last year, was the 186th LAPD officer to be killed in the line of duty and the first this year.

“This was a devastating accident,” said LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride, a department spokesman. “The Integra was totally dismantled and destroyed, and there was a monstrous impact on the front end of the police car.”

Police investigators have not determined why the woman was speeding, but said there are indications that drugs were possibly involved. They would not elaborate.

According to police, shortly after 2:30 a.m. the Integra sped west on Sherman Way in a thick fog and ran a red light at Balboa Boulevard.

Witnesses in another car told police “she was driving like a fool,” said LAPD Detective Robert Uber of the Valley Traffic Division. “They estimated she was doing 100 m.p.h., if not, as fast as that car could go.”

Seconds later, the Integra--without braking--ran another red light and slammed into the passenger side of the patrol car, which was traveling north on White Oak Avenue, police said.

The impact sent the police car rolling several times until it came to rest on its right side at a Mobil gas station on the northwest corner of Sherman Way and White Oak Avenue. The Integra spun out of control, knocked over a traffic light and stopped next to the patrol car. Moments later, both cars burst into flames.

Police said a transient at the scene turned hero when he pulled both the surviving officer and the woman driver from their burning cars. Mark Burdick, who washes windows at the gas station, saw the collision and rallied arriving motorists to right the patrol car and search for survivors.

The early morning crash jolted awake residents of a nearby Reseda neighborhood.

“I heard a boom and things falling,” said Mary Chapman, who lives with her mother-in-law on nearby Yarmouth Avenue. “It was so loud I knew somebody was going to be killed.”

In the eerie fog-misted dawn, police closed off two block-long sections of Sherman Way and White Oak Avenue. The three dozen uniformed officers, detectives and department brass who converged on the scene were all there collecting evidence.

“We have a real sense of protection for our officers,” McBride said, explaining that officers were shielding the scene from curious onlookers.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams was in Berlin attending a media conference Saturday. A police spokeswoman said she did not know whether he planned to return as a result of the accident.

Williams was strongly criticized by officers for not returning to Los Angeles to console the family of LAPD Officer Charles Heim after he was gunned down last year outside a Hollywood hotel. At the time, Williams was celebrating his anniversary with his wife in Las Vegas.

LAPD Sgt. Dennis Zine, a board member and treasurer of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said he believes that Williams, as father of the LAPD family, has an obligation to return and comfort its members.

“I would say that clearly there is a moral and ethical cause for him to return,” Zine said. “But whether he returns or not is another story.”

Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy, the commanding officer of the Valley Bureau, described the crash as a “random, senseless occurrence” that snatched the life of a promising rookie officer.

“Our sense of loss is heightened by the fact that his career was cut so short,” Pomeroy said.

Police counselors were sent to the Van Nuys Division’s evening roll call to help comfort grieving officers who worked the same shift as Guerrero and Perez-Negron, who is survived by a brother who lives in Los Angeles and his mother who lives in Mexico.

By late Saturday morning, Guerrero was able to talk and walk with assistance, friends said.

Pomeroy described him as “emotionally distressed over the accident.” Friends said the injured officer mainly wanted to talk about his partner.

“We told him right away,” said a colleague, who asked not to be named. “We didn’t want him to see it on TV.”

“He said he didn’t even see [Perez-Negron] get hit,” said Ed Forster, a family friend who with his wife, Susan, visited Guerrero at the hospital.

Susan Forster, who has known Guerrero since he was a toddler, described him as the kind of officer who truly wants to help people. “All Marty ever wanted to do was be a police officer,” she said.

Friends say it is a personality trait that works perfectly with his job as a training officer. LAPD Officer Elizabeth Green, who works with Guerrero at the Van Nuys Division, said Guerrero’s reputation is well-deserved.

Green, who was shot in the elbow last month during a domestic violence call and still wears her arm in a sling, said that when she was hurt, Guerrero was right there to help her. He took care of her children and even drove her roommate back and forth from the hospital for visits.

Police acknowledge that the Valley is dangerous turf for motorists--even for officers such as Guerrero and Perez-Negron.

So far this year, 83 fatal traffic accidents have killed 100 people on Valley streets, roughly 12 more than have been slain.

“Had it not been the officer it could have been some innocent citizens,” Pomeroy said. “Because of the fog plus the high rate of speed of the oncoming vehicle, these officers had absolutely no way to know what was coming.”

With its large population, sprawling area and grids of wide, flat thoroughfares resembling mini-highways, the Valley has long been a haven for speeders.

“There are a lot of people who just disregard traffic signs and don’t even think about it,” said LAPD Capt. Harlan Ward, the commanding officer of the Valley Traffic Division. “Today’s accident is a result of what can happen.”

In another twist, three men who stopped to assist the accident scene became crime victims themselves Saturday.

The three, who had seen the Integra speed past their car only moments before, left their car running at the crash scene as they rushed to offer help.

Said Uber: “While they were being Good Samaritans, somebody stole their car.”

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Crash Kills Officer

A rookie police officer was killed and his partner injured when a speeding vehicle slammed into their patrol car in a Reseda intersection. The driver of the car, a woman in her late 20s, also died at the scene.

Sequence of Events:

1. A gold late-model Acura speeding west on Sherman Way runs a red light at Balboa Boulevard.

2. Traveling north on White Oak Avenue, the patrol car with two officers is struck in the intersection by the speeding vehicle.

3. The force of the impact rolls the police vehicle. Both cars are found on fire on the northwest corner of the intersection.