Authorities Friday identified the two men who suffered fatal injuries in a head-on wrong-way collision on the southbound Harbor (110) Freeway in downtown Los Angeles early Thursday morning.
The victims were Jose DeJesus Ruiz, 58, of Glendale, and Jesse Anthony De La Cruz Portillo, 22, of Los Angeles.
The accident occurred about 1:20 a.m. Thursday just north of Eighth Street, the California Highway Patrol said.
According to the preliminary investigation, sheriff’s deputies saw a 2003 Acura TL being driven “erratically and at high rates of speed” on the southbound 110 Freeway near Third Street, and they pulled the car over just south of the Santa Monica (10) Freeway, the CHP reported.
The car stopped on the right shoulder, but the driver — later identified as De La Cruz Portillo — abruptly made a U-turn into oncoming traffic, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Jason Wolak.
The Acura then went north in the southbound lanes and collided head-on with a 1997 Ford Ranger pickup, driven by Ruiz, that was southbound on the freeway just north of Eighth Street, the CHP reported.
Five of the six southbound lanes were closed down by the crash for about four hours but were re-opened before dawn, the CHP reported.
—City News Service