Three Americans are dead after a vehicle slammed into pedestrians and street vendors outside a North Hollywood Metro station during Tuesday evening rush hour, and the officials who run Los Angeles have nothing but condolences and an open investigation to offer.
Around 5:55 p.m., a light-colored SUV jumped the sidewalk near the intersection of Lankershim and Chandler Boulevards — a busy transit hub where commuters board buses and trains daily — and crashed into a food vendor's tent, killing three people on the spot and leaving at least three more critically injured, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The driver, a man in his 60s, had to be extricated from the vehicle and was hospitalized in critical condition. He was conscious but appeared to be in shock, LAPD Captain Warner Castillo said at a news conference.
"We don't know if it was done intentionally, if it was done by accident," Castillo told reporters.
Authorities have classified the incident as an "expanded traffic collision," according to Breitbart. LA Police Chief Jim McDonnell said investigators will be reviewing video footage in what he called a "prolonged but very deliberate investigation," The Guardian reported.
Aerial footage showed the SUV crumpled against a mass-transit shelter structure, debris scattered across the sidewalk. These were working people — street vendors, pedestrians, commuters — going about their business at a transit stop that serves the San Fernando Valley's NoHo commercial district. Mayor Karen Bass took to social media with a statement: "I'm heartbroken for the families of everyone impacted."
Heartbreak is cheap. Governance is what's missing. This is a city where the sidewalks around transit stations are packed with vendors and commuters, where infrastructure is neglected, and where the ruling class that controls every lever of power in California has made its priorities clear — and safe streets for working people isn't one of them. Whether this crash was intentional or accidental, three people are dead at a spot that should be safe, in a city that has spent years hollowing out basic municipal functions while chasing every progressive cause on the agenda.
The victims' names and ages have not been released. Metro service, naturally, is operating as usual.
The question isn't just what happened on Lankershim Boulevard Tuesday evening. The question is who, after years of one-party rule, is going to answer for the conditions that make tragedies like this routine.
