The L.A. Times has just reported that a 34-year old bike rider was hit and killed by a driver fleeing the scene of a shooting in Florence last night.
According to the paper, the driver had just fired a gun into his girlfriend’s car when he hit the bicyclist at the corner of East 84th Street and South Central Avenue around 10:45 pm. The rider was dragged across the street by the driver’s vehicle, and pronounced dead at the scene.
Something tells me that relationship is probably over. The driver was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
This is the 26th Southern California cycling fatality I am aware of this year, and the 14th in Los Angeles County. This has been a horrible year for L.A. County, which usually averages around 24 cycling fatalities each year.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for the victim and his family.
Update: KABC-7 reports that the incident began with a domestic dispute around 10:30 pm, when the driver argued with the mother of his baby. After smashing and shooting the woman’s car, the suspect attempted to flee when a police helicopter arrived on the scene.
According to Fox-11, the car became airborne before striking the victim, who has not be publicly identified, before hitting a street sign and coming to rest against another vehicle. The man attempted to flee on foot, but was captured nearby.
The only question I have to ask is was he arrested for shooting at his girlfriend or for running over the cyclist? Because it looks like one caused no harm, and the other was fatal.
[…] Up first a report that came from the WP “just posted” folder on the dashboard, a driver shoots at his girlfriend in another car, then runs over a bicyclist as he runs a stop sign escaping the scene of the shooting. Bicyclist killed by driver fleeing shooting in Florence, police say The driver was charged with assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting, nothing so far in the cyclist’s death. The wreck was an intersection wreck but so far outside the normal bounds of intersection protocols as to make any attempt to use them ludicrous, I place this wreck in the category of unavoidable by human cyclists without precognition, and equally unable to prevent by infrastructure. The link to the LA Times story came from BikingInLA in this post: More bad news for Bike to Work Day: Bike rider killed by driver fleeing a shooting […]
Sigh. I’m a recent LA transplant from Chicago and haven’t quite adjusted to the dangers of riding a bike on the streets of LA. Not that Chicago was safe, but drivers in LA simply don’t seem as aware of cyclists and it’s scary. Admittedly, this yet-again said instance is a bit of out of ordinary driving behavior.
I’m back visiting Chicago this week and noticed the highway traffic alert signs: 345 motorist deaths this year in all of Illinois. Absolutely stunning that there are 26 cycling deaths in Southern California alone.
Our prayers go up for the family and friends of the victim.