A 57-year-old man struck and killed by a Chevrolet Tahoe in South Los Angeles has been identified as Aubrey Player, whose death Monday added another name to a South LA street corridor that has seen a string of fatal pedestrian crashes in recent months. The collision happened about 8:35 p.m. Friday at the intersection of Duarte and 55th Streets in the Central-Alameda neighborhood, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office publicly identified Player on Monday, according to MyNewsLA.com. Player's place of residence was not immediately available. Police say the white Chevrolet Tahoe was traveling north through the intersection when it struck him.
Los Angeles Fire Department personnel responded to the scene and pronounced Player dead there, authorities said. Video from the scene showed a body covered by a white tarp lying in the roadway as officers investigated the collision.
Driver Stayed Behind, Unlike Recent Cases
In a detail that sets this crash apart from several other recent South LA fatalities, the driver of the Tahoe remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators, according to LAPD. That distinction matters under California law: Vehicle Code Section 20001 requires drivers involved in collisions causing injury or death to stop immediately, stay at the scene, and render aid, with violations carrying felony prison penalties of up to four years, as Hoodline has previously reported.
By staying put, the driver appears to have avoided potential hit-and-run criminal liability, a stark contrast to a pattern that has played out repeatedly in the neighborhood this year. Investigators will still need to sort out right-of-way questions under California Vehicle Code Section 21950, which requires drivers to yield to pedestrians in marked and unmarked crosswalks at intersections while also requiring pedestrians to use due care for their own safety, according to Shouse Law Group.
South LA's Deadly Pattern Continues
Player's death is the latest in a series of fatal crashes Hoodline has covered in South Los Angeles this year, including a man using a walker killed in a crosswalk earlier this month, a fatal hit-and-run that killed one person and critically injured another on Western Avenue, a scooter rider killed near Colden Avenue, and a 65-year-old man killed near Figueroa Street in the spring. In June, Hoodline also reported on a fatal train strike along South Long Beach Avenue in the same Central-Alameda neighborhood.
The pattern reflects a citywide problem that has proven stubborn despite years of official attention. Traffic collisions killed 290 people across Los Angeles in 2025, with more than 150 of those deaths involving pedestrians, according to LAPD data reported by LAist. Traffic fatalities have now outnumbered homicides in the city for three consecutive years, even as overall collision deaths fell 6% compared to 2024, the outlet reported.
Vision Zero Goals Still Far Off
The numbers stand in sharp contrast to the ambitions the city set out more than a decade ago. LAPD data for 2024 showed 170 pedestrians killed by vehicles citywide, nearly double the 88 pedestrian deaths recorded in 2015, the year Los Angeles launched its Vision Zero initiative with an original goal of eliminating traffic deaths entirely by 2025, according to ThatCarHitMe.com.
South Los Angeles divisions have repeatedly ranked among the city's worst for traffic deaths; multi-year LAPD tallies heading into 2025 showed the 77th Street and Southwest divisions each logging 31 fatalities, per the same ThatCarHitMe.com analysis. Citywide, 65% of all severe pedestrian and cyclist injuries and deaths occur on just 6% of city street miles, a set of corridors the Los Angeles Department of Transportation designates as its High Injury Network, according to the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.
Broader trends offer a modest counterpoint. Statewide pedestrian fatalities fell roughly 8.8% from 1,213 in 2022 to 1,106 in 2023, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety, while nationwide pedestrian deaths dropped 7% to 6,732 in 2025, the third straight annual decline after peaking at 7,737 in 2022, per the Governors Highway Safety Association as reported by Smart Cities Dive. Even so, those national figures remain above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, and South LA corridors like Duarte and 55th continue to carry an outsized share of the city's traffic deaths.
LAPD's Central Traffic Division and South Traffic Division are the units responsible for major collision investigations across Central and South Los Angeles, including accident reconstruction work in cases like Player's. No further details on the investigation's status have been released.
