“Impairment” may have played a role when an SUV and a sedan violently collided in a residential street in Montclair, killing two people and injuring two others, including a child, officials said Sunday.
The two-vehicle collision happened around 10:30 p.m. Saturday on Ramona Avenue and Howard Street, near the busier Mission Boulevard, according to the Montclair Police Department.
In addition to officers, the Montclair Fire Department responded to the scene to render aid.
All four people involved suffered blunt force trauma.
The driver and one of the passengers in the sedan were pronounced dead at the site, according to police. The department only described those victims as a 65-year-old woman and a 67-year-old man.
The other passenger in the sedan, a 5-year-old boy in a car seat, and the driver of the SUV sustained serious injuries and were taken to the hospital, officials said.
The SUV driver was allegedly impaired when the crash happened and might have ran the stop sign at the intersection, police said.
The agency only identified him as a 32-year-old Garden Grove man. Officials could not elaborate on his condition at the time.
A man who said he called 911 about the incident told KTLA the SUV driver had asked him not to contact the authorities.
The Police Department provided no further details on how the crash happened, but video from the scene shows crews towing what appeared to be a Ford Explorer and a Nissan sedan, both heavily damaged. Shards of glass covered the road.
The scene appeared to have been mostly cleared by around 7 a.m., although police remained at the location.
Jenny Carson said she’s lived in the area for three decades.
“It’s just a really bad corner,” Carson said of the four-way stop at the site of the incident.
She told KTLA that many accidents have happened there, adding that many drivers don’t comply with the stop signs.
Carson said a traffic light would make the neighborhood safer.