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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Three sons of a 60-year-old woman run over and killed by a vehicle driven by a sheriff's deputy in 2020 in Watts are suing Los Angeles County.
Antwon, Michael and Marcus Land, the offspring of the late Karen Land, brought the suit Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, also naming as a defendant Deputy Armando Ibarra. The suit alleges wrongful death, negligence and civil rights violations and seeks unspecified damages.
Karen Land was crossing Imperial Highway at Slater Street in a wheelchair in a crosswalk about 6:25 a.m. last Dec. 11 when she collapsed and fell onto Imperial, the suit states. Several drivers swerved or stopped to avoid her, but Ibarra's vehicle struck her, the suit alleges.
The suit alleges Ibarra negligently failed to yield to a pedestrian. Karen Land's sons have been deprived of the love, aid, comfort and companionship of their mother, who had a ``loving and devoted relationship'' with her children, the suit states.
The sheriff's department previously released a statement on the incident, saying the deputy's vehicle was actually the last of several to hit the victim.
``Early this morning ... a deputy driving a patrol vehicle struck an object on the roadway while traveling westbound on Imperial Highway approaching Slater Avenue,'' the statement read. ``The deputy immediately stopped and learned the object was a person. The preliminary investigation revealed the person was laying on the roadway because they had been struck by several other vehicles, prior to the deputy collision.''
The suit further alleges that three days before her death, Karen Land left a still unidentified facility where she received treatment for a drug problem, but that the staff did not notify her family or authorities.