A man using a wheelchair was killed early Friday in a hit-and-run crash near East 7th Street and Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, and police detained a BMW driver they suspect fled the scene. Officers found the victim in the street with severe traumatic injuries to his upper body, and despite aid from arriving officers and Long Beach Fire Department personnel, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash was reported shortly after 12:30 a.m., according to a Long Beach Police Department spokesperson who spoke with KTLA. Witnesses told police the suspect was driving a white sedan that was last seen fleeing southbound on Pacific Coast Highway. Officers located the vehicle, a white BMW with significant front-end damage including a smashed hood, near East 2nd Street and Pacific Coast Highway, where they detained the driver, identified only as an adult man. Police have not released his identity, and it remains unclear whether speed or impairment played a role in the crash.
At the scene, the victim's wheelchair was left crumpled in the street several feet from his body. East 7th Street was closed in both directions between Bellflower Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway while investigators worked the scene.
A Deadly Pattern Along the Same Corridor
This is the third fatal hit-and-run in the Pacific Coast Highway corridor in barely two weeks. Just four days earlier, on September 14, a pedestrian was killed near Pacific Coast Highway and Pacific Avenue after being struck by three separate vehicles, with two drivers fleeing the scene, as previously reported by Hoodline. And on September 4, a 68-year-old bicyclist was struck and killed by a semi-truck trailer in a hit-and-run on Pacific Coast Highway near Canal Avenue in West Long Beach — though police were not notified of that victim's death until September 10, according to the Long Beach Post.
Pacific Coast Highway and East 7th Street were the roads involved in Friday's crash. A separate fatal pedestrian crash in June, in which a 71-year-old was struck and killed while crossing Pacific Coast Highway near Pacific Avenue, underscores how often this stretch of roadway has turned deadly this year, as documented by CBS News.
City's 2026 Zero-Fatality Goal Slips Further Away
Long Beach recorded 53 fatal traffic collisions in 2025, the highest annual total of traffic deaths the city has seen in more than a decade — a sharp jump from the roughly 27 deaths per year the city averaged between 2013 and 2019, per the Long Beach Post's reporting. The city had recorded 35 traffic fatalities through mid-September, the outlet reported Thursday. The city's traffic-safety concerns include pedestrian fatalities.
The city adopted the Safe Streets Long Beach Action Plan and official Vision Zero goal in July 2020, aiming to eliminate all traffic-related fatalities and severe injuries citywide by 2026 — a deadline now just months away even as fatalities keep climbing. Long Beach has since approved an automated speed-safety camera pilot under California Assembly Bill 645, intended to deter excessive speeding.
Potential Charges Facing the Detained Driver
Under California Vehicle Code Section 20001, leaving the scene of a crash that results in injury or death is a wobbler offense that can be charged as a felony punishable by up to four years in state prison, according to the Kraut Law Group. State law requires drivers to immediately stop and render aid regardless of fault. The report did not identify charges against the driver, and investigators have not indicated whether speed or impairment contributed to the collision.
