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A hit-and-run accident leaves one dead, six injured and a vehicle overturned on the edge of Chinatown

An 18-year-old man was killed and six others were injured in a hit-and-run accident outside a Starbucks in Los Angeles’ Chinatown district, authorities said Saturday.

According to a release from the Los Angeles Fire Department, emergency responders responded to the scene of the accident at Broadway and Cesar Chavez Avenue shortly before 12:45 p.m.

According to Kevin Terzes of the Los Angeles Police Department, the rollover accident occurred when a vehicle on Cesar Chavez collided with a car traveling north on Broadway. The 18-year-old who was in the car that was hit was pronounced dead at a hospital, Terzes said.

Police did not release the man’s name, but family members who gathered at the intersection Saturday night identified him as Isaac Arellanes Jr., a student at Rio Hondo College.

A makeshift memorial of flowers, candles and photos at a bus stop after darkA makeshift memorial of flowers, candles and photos at a bus stop after dark

A memorial for Isaac Arellanes Jr., 18, identified by family members as the man who died in a crash Saturday outside a Starbucks in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. (David Zahniser/Los Angeles Times)

Isaac Arellanes Sr. said he and his son were both trainees at Homeboy Industries, a renowned gang intervention and rehabilitation program, and received their high school diplomas on the same day earlier this year. Since then, his son wanted to be an electrician – and he had a small child of his own, Arellanes said.

“I was very proud of him. I was hard on my son,” he said, standing next to a makeshift memorial decorated with candles, flowers and balloons. “He was the one I was most worried about.”

Family members who gathered at the scene covered a bus kiosk with photos of Arellanes Jr. and shared a link to a GoFundMe page to help pay funeral costs.

Six other people involved in the accident were also taken to a hospital – two of them in critical condition, the other four with non-life-threatening injuries, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart. Two were trapped in a vehicle and rescued by firefighters, she said.

Footage broadcast by KTLA-TV showed one of the two vehicles upside down on the sidewalk next to the Starbucks’ outdoor patio. The other car, driven by Cesar Chavez, was mangled on the curb.

A team responding to the accident lifted the upside-down vehicle with a crane, as shown in a video from KABC-TV.

Police spokesman Terzes said the driver of the first vehicle fled the scene and was not caught.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

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