2 Hit-Run Drivers Strike Boy, Who Dies

A 4-year-old boy was killed Saturday night when he was struck by two hit-and-run drivers in El Sereno, leaving shocked and outraged relatives and friends wondering Sunday why the motorists didn’t stop to help.

“If [the motorists] have families of their own, they know this could happen,” the boy’s grandmother, Maria Vazquez, said in Spanish, fighting back tears. “Look at what happened to my grandson. He was a good, happy boy.”

The woman, comforted by neighbor Priscilla Bravo, couldn’t go on. She bowed her head and cried quietly as friends and relatives gathered in front of the family house in the 2400 block of North Eastern Avenue to mourn Alejandro “Alex” Vazquez of Baldwin Park. He was the son of Lucio and Maricella Vazquez.

About 30 family members had gathered at the home Saturday night to celebrate the first birthday of one of the Vazquez grandchildren. There was laughter, kids fighting over candy from a pinata, and good conversation.

That changed when the boy--seeing that his mother had arrived and parked her car across the street--darted into traffic on Eastern and was struck by two cars shortly before 8:30 p.m., authorities said. Alex was first hit by a dark-colored vehicle that was headed north on Eastern.

Investigators said the impact sent him flying into the southbound lanes, where a second vehicle, described as a mid-size maroon station wagon with two lawn mowers sticking out the back window, also hit him.

The accident came one week after a study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project named Los Angeles County as the most dangerous place in the state for pedestrians--especially children.

Neighbor Patricia Acosta said she rushed into traffic to help the boy. “But there was nothing we could do,” Acosta said. “Everybody was screaming and crying.”

The two drivers sped off without stopping, Los Angeles traffic officers said. The boy was rushed to County-USC Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Acosta and others in the northeast Los Angeles community have decried the heavy traffic on Eastern, noting that measures to deal with speeders had been talked about but no action was taken. Acosta and Bravo said a traffic signal or a stop sign should be installed at Eastern and Norelle Street, near where the boy was hit.

Traffic is particularly heavy during school days because two campuses--Wilson High and El Sereno Middle School--are nearby, they said.

But more than anything else, relatives and friends want the two drivers to turn themselves in.

“I don’t see how these people can sleep at night, knowing that they hit a little boy and they didn’t stop to help him,” Bravo said.

Even if the boy was in the wrong by running unexpectedly into the street, the first driver should have stopped, she said.

As news of the tragedy spread along Eastern, neighbors and friends placed stuffed animals, flowers, burning candles and a photo of Alex with his parents in front of a tree in the grandparents’ frontyard.

“In a wink of an eye,” Bravo said, “life can change. It sure did for this family.”

Detectives said anyone with information about the two cars or their drivers should call LAPD’s Central Traffic Division at (213) 485-3122 or Central Traffic detectives at (213) 485-3111.