3 LV teens die in Calif.
Drunken driving suspect strikes car
Three Centennial High School students were killed Thursday morning in Southern California when their vehicle was struck by a drunken driving suspect while they were enjoying their spring break, a sister of one victim said.
The crash occurred at
1:08 a.m. on the Pacific Coast Highway, when 27-year-old Bani Duarte of San Clemente struck a red Toyota stopped at
CRASH
an intersection, Huntington Beach police said.
Police believe the Toyota was stopped at the traffic light when Duarte’s car rear-ended it and pushed it through the intersection, causing it to run up onto a sidewalk and a pool.
A fourth person in the Toyota got out and was taken to a local trauma center with unknown injuries, spokeswoman Angie Bennett said.
An officer tried to rescue the others when the car burst into flames, Bennett said.
Duarte was arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and driving under the influence causing injury.
Huntington Beach resident Alex Martinez, 20, told the Review-journal in a Facebook chat that he and his friends were returning from a gym when they saw Duarte’s white car driving erratically and hitting sidewalks before the crash.
Martinez said he and his friends called the police to report her erratic driving. They followed her car until she stopped on some metered parking. “I told (her) she hit two sidewalks back there and she said, ‘Really? No way,’” said Martinez, who first shared his story with The Orange