Authorities said a driver hit the man multiple times along a curb early Thursday and fled.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A man was killed early Thursday in South Los Angeles after a driver struck him multiple times along a curb in what authorities are treating as a suspected hit-and-run, according to reports carried by KTLA and Yahoo News.
The death added to another violent traffic investigation in Los Angeles, where police were still trying to sort out exactly how the collision unfolded, identify the driver and determine what led up to the repeated impacts. Officials had not publicly released the victim’s name or age in the first reports, and key details about the vehicle, the block where it happened and whether witnesses recorded the crash remained unclear.
Initial reporting said the fatal collision happened in South Los Angeles early Thursday. Authorities said the victim was a man and that the driver struck him more than once near a curb before leaving the scene. That account immediately shifted the case from a routine traffic fatality to a suspected hit-and-run investigation, because investigators now have to piece together not only the path of the vehicle but also whether the repeated strikes were the result of panic, recklessness or something more deliberate. In the first hours after the crash, officials did not describe any arrest, and they had not publicly identified a suspect.
What authorities did say was stark. The man died after being hit multiple times, according to the reports, and the crash happened in South L.A. before sunrise Thursday. Beyond that, much of the case remained unsettled. Police had not publicly outlined the sequence of events before impact, said whether the victim had been walking on the sidewalk or in the street, or explained whether investigators recovered nearby video. They also had not said whether the driver’s vehicle was found. In cases like this, detectives typically work through camera footage, debris, damage patterns and witness statements to reconstruct the final moments, but the public record in this case was still thin Thursday morning.
The location matters because South Los Angeles is crisscrossed by wide arterial streets where pedestrian deaths often draw intense attention from residents long before formal findings are released. A report that a driver hit a man multiple times near a curb raises questions about speed, visibility, impairment and roadway design, but none of those explanations had been confirmed in the early coverage. The lack of basic identifying information also underscored how fresh the investigation was. Families often are not notified immediately, and police frequently withhold names until relatives are reached and the coroner’s process moves forward.
Procedurally, the case appeared to be in its earliest phase Thursday. Because the driver reportedly left, investigators were expected to treat the collision as a felony hit-and-run inquiry while also examining whether evidence supports any additional criminal allegation. The next public milestones are likely to be the release of the victim’s identity, a more precise location, and any description of the suspect vehicle. Police also could ask for surveillance footage or witnesses once detectives narrow the timeline. As of the first reports, no charging decision or arrest had been announced.
For neighbors waking up to another deadly crash scene, the details that were public were already grim enough. A man was dead. A driver was gone. And the phrase “multiple times” set this case apart from the many overnight crashes that police log each week across Los Angeles. Even without a named witness in the early reports, the language of the first official account suggested a chaotic and violent scene, one likely to leave investigators searching for camera angles, fragments of vehicle evidence and anyone who saw the moments before the driver fled.
As of Thursday, authorities were still working to identify the victim publicly and locate the driver. The next major update is expected when police release more facts about the vehicle, the crash site and whether any suspect has been found.
Author note: Last updated March 19, 2026.