Suspect Held in Fatal Hit-and-Run Collision

A 48-year-old Huntington Beach man was being held Tuesday on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter after allegedly running down a 73-year-old woman in a crosswalk and then fleeing the scene, police said.

Louis M. Lockhart was being held Tuesday at Orange County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail after fatally injuring Chen Chu Chang of Santa Ana as she crossed the street in the 500 block of West 3rd Street, Santa Ana Police Sgt. Bob Clark said.

Witnesses told police that the driver of a westbound, black El Camino struck Chang about 6:30 p.m., then pulled over and got out of the car, Clark said. As some witnesses tended to the victim and another called 911 from a nearby apartment, they saw the driver abruptly jump back into his car and drive off, he said.

One of the witnesses started to jog the few blocks to the city’s police station and alerted a police officer in a passing patrol car, Clark said.

The officer then chased and stopped a dark El Camino in the 1200 block of West Santa Ana Boulevard, about half a mile from where the accident occurred, Clark said. Lockhart was arrested without incident, Clark said.

Although conscious at the accident scene, Chang died of her injuries five hours later at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, police and coroner’s officials said.