Man Killed Chasing Car Thief

A 61-year-old Pacoima man who ran into traffic to pursue a car thief was struck and killed by a another auto Saturday night.

It was the thief’s second attempt that day to steal the car of DiZhong Song, who was run over at the intersection of San Fernando Road and Kelowna Street as he tried to flag down a taxi to follow the fleeing bandit, police said.

The driver of the car that hit Song, James Collins Jr., also of Pacoima, stopped to help Song and then drove to the Foothill Division police station to report the incident. He will not be charged, said Officer Ron Inada of the Valley Traffic Division.

Song, a manager of the Villa Las Palmas motel on San Fernando Road in Pacoima, ran into the street yelling, “My car! My car!” said David Zhang, day manager of the motel.

“I went to get my driver’s license and keys to pursue Mr. Song’s car and I heard a loud noise,” said Zhang. “Mr. Song’s wife was crying, ‘Come here, help me!’ ”

Song was taken to Pacifica Hospital in Sun Valley, where he was pronounced dead.

Earlier that evening, the same man had tried to steal Song’s 1987 maroon Buick Skylark but was stymied when the car’s engine failed to start, Zhang said. He said the man left after Song confronted him.

At about 9:30 p.m., Song, who was preparing to leave the motel, dashed back into the building, leaving his car running. According to Zhang, the man then jumped into the car and stole it.

Police do not have a suspect in the theft and are still looking for Song’s car.

Family members described Song as an “optimistic and hard-working man” who immigrated from China eight years ago with his wife, Jing-Rei Wang, 57, and his daughter, Jie Song, 22. The family had relatives living in Pacoima who helped Song get the motel job soon after his arrival.

“My husband had a very hard life,” Wang said in Mandarin Chinese through an interpreter.

Wang said that in 1966, a year after they were married, Song was imprisoned as a reprisal against his father, who had left his family in Beijing and became a general in the Taiwanese army.

She said his Chinese captors strung a sign around his neck that read, “This is an anti-revolutionary” and paraded him through the capital’s streets before sending him to a labor camp for 12 years.

After his release, Song worked as a mechanical engineer at a Mitsubishi plant in Beijing before bringing his family to the United States in 1989.

“He was a very loving man. He was always helping other people,” said Wang.