Video showed an allegedly stolen Prius hitting an elderly female pedestrian when police crashed the car to end a high-speed chase in Los Angeles, California on Thursday.
A Toyota Prius was seen speeding down Sepulveda Boulevard in Harbor City, running two red lights, climbing a curb and knocking over a sign. In a video provided by NBC Los Angeles,. The police vehicle then slowed down and swerved at the intersection between Vermont Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard, where the police vehicle performed a PIT maneuver and crashed into the Prius, striking a woman who was crossing the road and sending her to the curb. . Video showed the carjacking suspect, who was driving a Prius, begin to drive away.
The elderly woman was identified as 66-year-old Maria Salazar.Although she was bruised, she walked home on her own with shopping bags, NBC Los Angeles report. “I was crossing the street and I don't remember anything. I just felt a jolt,” she told NBC Los Angeles. She also reportedly said the officer should have stopped at the red light because she had the right of way. (Related: Carjacking begins with murder of mother, civilian dies, and ends with police spraying bullets into stolen van)
“I don't know why they were chasing him,” Salazar's daughter Diana told NBC Los Angeles. “The urgency to stop him. I don't know if they saw my mother.”
Torrance police say the suspect in the Prius committed a carjacking and was on the run from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) when he carjacked the Prius within about four minutes. statement. After police crashed the vehicle, the suspect fled the vehicle on foot, but was apprehended a short time later and turned over to LASD, the statement said.
Salazar refused treatment from emergency medical personnel, but left the scene on his own and then went to the hospital, the statement said.