A Los Angeles Police Department motorcycle officer was hospitalized in stable condition this week with injuries he suffered when he was struck by an SUV reportedly driven by Inglewood Mayor James Butts near the USC campus.
The crash occurred about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday near Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa Street, according to the LAPD. The sergeant, who’s name was not released, suffered non life-threatening injuries, police said.
Butts was attempting to make a left turn onto the school’s campus—possibly against a red light—when his vehicle was struck by another vehicle, an anonymous law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times.
Butts’ vehicle spun and crashed into the sergeant and sent both the sergeant and his motorcycle into a nearby fountain, the source told the newspaper.
LAPD Capt. Gisselle Espinoza told reporters at the scene the officer was “stationary” in front of a water fountain at the school when a crash involving a black SUV and another vehicle occurred at the intersection, and the SUV wound up hitting the officer.
A USC employee who requested anonymity told the newspaper she was walking from a bus stop to campus when she heard the crash.
“I see an officer in the fountain and people run up and try to help him, but they can’t move him because he’s really injured,” the employee said. “If he hadn’t had his helmet on, he would be dead.”
The employee said she next walked up to a man in a suit she believed had been driving the SUV.
“I didn’t know who he was,” she said. “I asked ‘Are you OK?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, thank you, thank you.”’
The woman driving the vehicle that collided with the SUV suffered minor injuries and told others at the scene the SUV had cut her off and she “couldn’t break fast enough,” the newspaper said.
ABC7 captured aerial footage that shows Butts at the scene after the crash.
Espinoza confirmed to the Los Angeles Times the SUV is registered to the city of Inglewood.
There was no word on whether anyone was cited.
