Two people were killed, including a pregnant woman, after a driver fleeing a gunman careened into the front porch of a Boyle Heights home in what firefighters described as an “incredible, violent” crash on Sunday.
The incident began when a gunman stepped out of a black SUV and shot into a white car near East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Echandia Street, Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Frank Preciado said.
The car then sped away from the scene at a high rate of speed and crashed into a home in the 1500 block of Pleasant Avenue — about five blocks away, Google Maps showed.
Police were responding to reports made around 11 a.m. regarding the shooting when the collision was reported some three minutes later, LAPD and Los Angeles Fire Department officials said. The crash location was initially given as the 1600 block of Pleasant.
The speeding car careened into the single-family dwelling, causing the porch to collapse and building to be significantly damaged — including a “gigantic hole” that was visible from the street, Fire Department Battalion Chief Michael Bowman said.
“The building was actually taken off the foundation — an incredible, violent accident,” he said.
The home was “devastated” and will likely be red tagged, Bowman said.
Although fire officials initially said the home was unoccupied, Bowman later said a man was inside and had not been injured during the incident.
A male occupant of the vehicle was transported to Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, according to the Fire Department.
Meanwhile, firefighters were working to extricate body of a female occupant from the overturned wreckage, and “an extended recovery operation (was) anticipated,” the department stated in a news release.
The woman was three to four months pregnant, the only person to survive the crash told police, Preciado said.
The third occupant was in “very good condition” following the collision, and had “self-extricated” from the vehicle, Bowman said.
He was transported to the USC hospital and treated for minor to moderate injuries, “which is a miracle, being that that’s such a high-rate-of-speed accident,” he said.
Neither the two deceased persons nor the survivor were identified, and their relationships were unknown. It was also not immediately known if any of the vehicle’s occupants had been shot.
Investigators were searching for the gunman Sunday. He was described as a slender Hispanic man, standing 6 feet to 6 feet 4 inches tall, and was possibly in his 20s.
The gunman was a passenger in the black SUV, and a description of the driver was not available.
Fire officials were in a unified command with the LAPD, and transitioning the area into a crime scene, Bowman said Sunday afternoon.
“It’s a real technical operation right now as far as shoring up the building and so forth,” he said. “We have to make it safe for the coroner to conduct their investigation and the LAPD to conduct their investigation.”
The “prolonged operation” was expected to take about six hours.
#BREAKING @LAFD rescue 3 people trapped inside an overturned vehicle after it slammed in a home in Boyle Heights. pic.twitter.com/oQIt7iqPpP
— RMG News (@RMGNews) February 7, 2016
