May 14, 2007 9:00 am US/Pacific
Mother's Day Accident Driver Out On Bail
2 Killed, 3 Injured When Car Strikes Flower Stand
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
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Harley Darnell Daniels of Los Angeles was booked Sunday morning on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter, then released at night on $100,000 bail, authorities said.
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Marilyn Herod, a 57-year-old Riverside grandmother was killed in the crash.
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Two people were killed after being struck by a car that jumped a curb and plowed into a bus stop and a Mother's Day flower stand in South Los Angeles early Sunday.
CBS
A grandmother, 57, and man, 26, were killed and three others injured when a motorist plowed into a bus stop and flower stand in South Los Angeles on Mother's Day.
Harley Darnell Daniels of Los Angeles was booked Sunday morning on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter, then released at night on $100,000 bail, authorities said.
Daniels told officers at the scene he nodded off at the wheel after working all night at a soft drink bottling plant, according to a police captain. Tests that should show whether he was under the influence of an illegal drug were pending, police said.
Marilyn Herod, a 57-year-old Riverside grandmother, and Selvin Herrera, a 26-year-old immigrant from Guatemala, were killed in the 7 a.m. crash.
Daniels' 2006 Dodge Charger was westbound on Century Boulevard when it slammed into a wrought-iron fence at Vermont Avenue, where Herod had set up her stand, according to the coroner's office and Los Angeles police Capt. Bill Sutton of the South Traffic Division.
For the past seven years, Herod had set up the flower stand with other mothers to sell gift baskets and teddy bears in a parking lot near St. Reed Missionary Baptist Church, which she and the other women attended, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"One of the bars from the iron fence struck her in the head," Los Angeles police Officer J. Covarrubias told The Times.
Herrera was waiting on a bus when he was fatally injured in the crash, which also injured two other women and another man.
A 69-year-old woman who was helping Herod set up the floral stand was in critical but stable condition with internal injuries, The Times reported.
A 41-year-old woman who may have been buying a gift basket had her right foot severed in the crash. She was in stable condition at California Hospital Medical Center.
Rodolfo Rumines, 20, who was also waiting at the bus stop, had back pain and cuts to his forehead, according to the newspaper.
Daniels was said by his attorney to be highly distraught over the accident. He lives near the crash scene and had reportedly bought flowers from Herod in the past, ABC7 reported.
Flowers, baskets and teddy bears lay strewn about the sidewalk amid what Sutton described as "a horrific scene."
Initially, Sutton said excessive speed may have played a role in the accident, and a witness said the driver appeared to be racing another car.
The car barreled over the sidewalk and plowed into the people before coming to rest atop a mangled iron fence and remnants of the street-corner flower stand.
Some members of the victims' churches ran to the scene, a busy intersection crowded on Sunday mornings with people walking to several houses of worship.
Last night, a group of mourners, many of them with tears in their eyes, gathered at the accident scene to remember the victims.
Anyone with information about the crash was asked to call police at (323) 290-6063 during normal office hours, or (877) 529-3855 after hours.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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