2 killed, driver charged in crash
Every Mother’s Day for seven years, Marilyn Herod set up a flower stand selling gift baskets and teddy bears in the parking lot of an auto body shop near her South Los Angeles church.
The Riverside mother set up the stand again early Sunday morning, working with other mothers of her congregation at St. Reed Missionary Baptist Church.
Herod, 56, was killed Sunday when, police said, a black 2006 Dodge Charger, traveling westbound on Century Boulevard at South Vermont Avenue crossed into opposing traffic just after 7 a.m., jumped the curb and plowed into a wrought-iron fence surrounding the parking lot where Herod had set up her stand.
“One of the bars from the iron fence struck her in the head,” said Los Angeles Police Officer J. Covarrubias. “It’s terrible.”
The Dodge continued diagonally across the parking lot, smashing into another portion of the fence. Los Angeles resident Selvin Herrera, an immigrant from Guatemala who was waiting for a bus, was struck in the head and killed.
Two other women and a man suffered injuries.
Gift baskets, teddy bears and floral arrangements littered the ground as investigators examined the accident scene, police said.
Police arrested the driver of the Dodge, Harley Darnell Daniels, 21, on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. Police believe Daniels was under the influence of a nonalcoholic intoxicant but they were waiting for lab tests to identify the substance, Covarrubias said. He was being held late Sunday at the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Daniels suffered minor injuries, police said.
According to police, one witness said that the driver of the Dodge appeared to be falling asleep before the crash. But another witness said the driver appeared to be racing with another vehicle, possibly another Dodge Charger, Covarrubias said.
Also injured was another parishioner who was helping Herod set up the floral stand, a 69-year-old woman who suffered internal injuries. She was hospitalized in critical but stable condition. A 41-year-old woman, who witnesses said appeared to be buying a gift basket, had her right foot severed in the crash. She was in stable condition at California Hospital Medical Center.
Rodolfo Rumines, 20, who was also waiting at the bus stop, suffered some back pain and cuts to his forehead.
Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to call the LAPD’s South Traffic Division at (323) 290-6063.
gary.polakovic@latimes.com
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