Vehicle in Fatal Race Described

Police provided details Monday about the vehicle they are seeking after an illegal street race last week ended in a crash that killed a Santa Ana man and injured his three daughters.

Authorities are looking for the driver of a black Ford F-150 pickup with tinted windows and white lettering on them.

Police are not sure what role the driver had in the accident, which happened about 6:50 p.m. Friday, but “we want to catch him now, while this crime is still fresh in people’s minds,” said Sgt. Baltazar De La Riva, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Police Department.

Police said the truck was racing north on Flower Street, competing with Arturo Ortiz Jr., a 21-year-old Santa Ana resident who was also driving a Ford pickup.

After the two pickups zigzagged for more than a mile, Ortiz crashed head-on with Jose Escobar Estrada’s Ford Tempo near Flower Street and Central Avenue. Estrada, 35, died at the scene. His three young daughters--Clarabell, 3; Michelle, 6; and Esmerelda, 11--had been sitting in the back. They are being treated at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

Hospital officials would not list their condition, but De La Riva said all three are in serious condition, one in a coma.

Ortiz is being treated at UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he is under arrest on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. He faces a number of charges when he is released from the hospital, De La Riva said.