Family Struck by Hit-and-Run Driver

It was just before sunrise Tuesday when Edith Ramirez, a 28-year-old single mother, stepped from her crumbling stucco apartment in South-Central Los Angeles, her three young boys in tow.

She was on her way to drop off her children at a neighbor’s house before getting on the bus to downtown.

As Ramirez moved through the crosswalk at 87th Place, carrying her 2-year-old, something residents have long dreaded finally happened: A car speeding down Central Avenue did not slow down as the pedestrians crossed. The family was struck head-on by the driver of a white Buick who, witnesses told police, glanced back but kept on driving.

Ramirez’s 6-year-old son, Amos, was listed in critical condition later Tuesday with two broken legs and blunt trauma to the head, officials said. Bryan, 3, was listed in guarded condition with blunt-force trauma to the head and body, and 2-year-old Edgar was not injured.

“I tried to get out of the way, but it was coming too fast,” said Ramirez in Spanish on Tuesday afternoon at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

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Police said the man suspected of driving the car continued south on Central Avenue and might have disappeared into the urban sprawl had his license plate not fallen off when he hit the family. Officers recovered it and quickly traced it to Israel Castro Majia, a 60-year-old Watts resident.

Majia was arrested shortly after the accident and charged with felony hit and run.

“He didn’t appear to skid,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Bill Whittaker. “He just seemed to hit them full force.”

Residents of the working-class South-Central neighborhood said they have long complained about speeding traffic that fails to yield to pedestrians on a block with two preschools and three churches.

“I cross with great caution,” Rosa Cuevas, 47, said in Spanish. “I grab my kids and run to avoid getting hit.”

Some residents said they walk up the street to the signal at Manchester Boulevard to avoid the crosswalk. They said traffic poses the greatest danger early in the morning when children are walking to school.

One neighbor, Marion Kello, 60, said that her stepfather was killed nine years ago by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the avenue a block north of Tuesday’s accident.

“He was in the crosswalk trying to go to the store,” Kello said. “They never did stop.”

Ramirez was walking to Cuevas’ home, which is across the avenue in a nearby alley. She routinely leaves her sons with Cuevas while she tries to make a living.

“I was crossing with the children and they were quiet and I thought he was going to stop,” said Ramirez, who was wearing white jeans scraped by the asphalt and had a black jacket over her injured shoulder. “But he didn’t stop.”

Ramirez said she heard no sounds of skidding. After she was hit, she rushed to Amos, who was knocked a “long distance” from her, and lay unconscious on the street.

Edgar landed safely in her arms and stayed with Cuevas’ family all day. “He asks for his brothers because he’s used to playing with them all day,” said Enrique Guillen, 18, Cuevas’ son.

Edith Ramirez and her two other sons were taken to the hospital; she was treated and released.

“She’s a hard-working mom who tries to provide for her sons,” said Guillen. “Anything they want, she tries to give them.”

Guillen said that she has no health insurance.

“I just think unfortunately pedestrians really have to watch out for themselves,” said Whittaker. Then, addressing potential hit-run drivers, he added: “You don’t just leave a mother and three children [lying] in the road like garbage.”