Beloved Father, Salad Chef Killed

Rafael Lopez Hernandez worked long days as a salad chef in a Beverly Hills restaurant, often catching the bus near midnight to return home to his wife and baby.

It was his pattern, but on Tuesday night, as he again stood at the bus stop with a co-worker, a car careened toward them.

Police don’t know why Cloyd Pemberton, a contractor who lives six blocks away, lost control of his car at Pico Boulevard and Beverly Drive and swerved from the street, striking the 20-year-old chef. Lopez died instantly. The car clipped the co-worker, demolished a street light and crashed into an iron gate outside a delicatessen.

Pemberton, 61, stumbled from the crumpled sedan and tried to run, Officer Jack Richter of the Los Angeles Police Department said. Witnesses stopped him, Richter said. Officers booked Pemberton on suspicion of felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. Witnesses said he had been speeding on Pico when his vehicle veered, Richter said.

Ranolfo Mijangos, the co-worker from Islands restaurant who was at the bus stop with Lopez, was treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a leg injury.

On Wednesday, Pemberton was being held on $51,984 bail. Police said he had not been under the influence of alcohol.

At Lopez’s apartment, tears flowed. “Rafael was a good husband and a good father. He didn’t deserve this,” said his brother-in-law, Antonio Marcelo, 29.

Lopez’s wife, Florina De Marcelo, steeled herself as she prepared to go to the coroner’s office to see the body of her husband of two years. Their son, Victor Manuel, bounced on his mother’s lap as a Spanish-language music video played on television.

“His father used to dance with him to the videos,” said a sobbing De Marcelo. “That’s why the baby likes to dance when he hears music

The couple met three years ago at an adult school where they studied English. Lopez especially wanted to learn the English words for the ingredients he used at work.

Two months ago, Lopez told a co-worker at the West L.A. restaurant where he then worked about his future plans: “He said he wanted to work very, very hard--12 to 14 hours a day--for about two years. He wanted to really save his money and go back to Oaxaca, to seek other opportunities, to do something different,” said chef Roberto Nava.

In the month since he had been at Islands, Marcelo said, her husband sometimes worked more than 12 hours a day. Workers there were devastated by his death, said general manager Craig Redden. Donations for Lopez’s family were being left at the restaurant.

An account has been set up at Wells Fargo Bank, 8901 W. Pico Blvd.,to help with burial, in the name of Beatriz Sanchez Reyes.