Pedestrian Killed, 2nd Hurt; 2 Bus Drivers Held

Two Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus drivers were jailed over the weekend in unrelated traffic accidents that killed one pedestrian and injured another.

Police booked Cruz Vaca, 39, on a murder charge early Sunday morning after the bus he was driving ran over a vagrant, who later died.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, Eduardo Funes, said the victim, whose identity had not been released late Sunday, was trying to catch the eastbound bus near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Wilton Place about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. When the bus did not stop, the man hopped onto the bike rack at the front of the moving vehicle, Funes said. He fell and was crushed under the bus.

Bus riders told police that the driver and the victim had argued. One witness, David Thompson, said that he had seen the victim knocking on the door to be let on the bus as the vehicle was moving slowly. The driver did not open the door, so the man stood in front of the bus.

“He essentially told the bus driver, ‘You either have to stop or run over me,’ ” Thompson said. “The man was angry because the driver wouldn’t let him on the bus. It came down to a matter of two wills.”

Vaca remained in jail Sunday, with bail set at $1 million.

MTA officials would not comment on the incident.

Another MTA driver, Debra Johnson, was arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run after she reportedly struck a pedestrian and kept going near the community of Lennox shortly before midnight Saturday night.

An MTA spokesman, Jose Ubaldo, said Johnson, 47, was driving north on Western Avenue at 112th Street when someone called in a bus-pedestrian collision. She returned to the scene and was arrested by the California Highway Patrol, Ubaldo said.

The CHP did not release its report over the weekend, and the nature or extent of the victim’s injuries could not be determined, although officials said they apparently were not life-threatening. Both MTA and CHP officials were investigating.

Ubaldo said conflicting reports from witnesses have led the MTA to question whether the injured man had been struck by the bus or another vehicle.

Johnson was being held on $35,000 bail.