Investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department have released dashcam and body-worn video of a fatal collision between officers and a 30-year-old man in Highland Park that occurred earlier this year.
The Sept. 19 incident happened at around 7:17 p.m. as officers were responding with lights and sirens to a police perimeter on Figueroa Street and Piemont Avenue for a parolee at large, a spokesperson for LAPD said at the time.
Authorities said the officer behind the wheel of the police cruiser was moving into the center median to navigate through traffic when he fatally struck Gerardo “Jerry” Estrada, who was riding a skateboard in the median.
Officers immediately pulled the vehicle to the side of the road and requested a rescue ambulance.
“Moments later, the officers located Estrada wedged beneath a parked vehicle nearby,” LAPD Capt. Mike Bland says in the department’s critical incident briefing. “The officers removed Estrada from underneath the vehicle and began to render aid until paramedics arrived.”
Medical personnel with the L.A. Fire Department arrived a short time later and declared Estrada deceased at the scene.
Although authorities have not confirmed the speed the officer was driving, they claimed the officers weren’t driving excessively fast.
However, witnesses who were attending a carnival at nearby Sycamore Grove Park said the impact was so loud, they initially thought two cars had collided.
“There are witnesses all around here, and they’ve been talking,” Jerry Perez, Estrada’s friend, told KTLA. “They saw it happen, that a cop was going by fast and all of a sudden, they heard something being hit hard.”
At a vigil held in his honor the night after the fatal collision, Estrada’s mother, Rosa Cazares, said her son was heading home from work that night and lived just a few minutes away from where he was killed. She described him as a bright light and a free spirit.
“He was a wonderful kid,” Cazares told KTLA. “A wonderful brother and uncle, too.”
The 30-year-old worked as a host and bartender at a restaurant in the Arts District. He had a degree from Santa Monica College and dreamed of a career in photography and film.
“He loved music,” his mother said. “His passion was taking pictures with a little bit of filming here and there.”
Authorities said the incident remains under active investigation by LAPD’s Traffic Coordination Division, Multidisciplinary Investigation Team.
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