The father of two boys killed in November when a Sheriff’s Department SUV crashed into a car and veered up onto the sidewalk is suing Los Angeles County. City News Service reports that Luis Hernandez’s lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges negligence and wrongful death.
A Los Angeles Police Department investigation earlier this month found that the Sheriff’s Department vehicle was going 25 mph and did have its emergency lights on but the siren was off. A deputy was driving the vehicle while training for patrol duty and her training officer was in the passenger seat.
The deputy was responding to a radio call of shots fired near the East Los Angeles border with Boyle Heights. But the lawsuit claims that the deputy “was not in the process of responding to an emergency call, was not in the immediate pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law and did not have (her) sirens and/or lights activated,” City News Service writes.
The crash happened on the southwest corner of Whittier Boulevard and Indiana Street. Seven-year-old Jose Luis Hernandez was pronounced dead at the scene while his nine-year-old brother Marcos Antonio Hernandez was declared dead at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Their mother was also critically injured and suffered a broken pelvic bone, head injury, fractured neck, leg, and broken nose. The crash involved three vehicles and 17 people in total.
The Sheriff’s Department released a statement previously expressing their condolences to the families of the crash victims. The department tells City News Service that they have not received the lawsuit and have no comment on the pending litigation.
