Crime & Safety
3 Dead, 9 Hurt When Driver Plows Through School's Christmas Concert Crowd
Three are dead and several injured after a suspected drunk driver plowed into a crowd leaving a Christmas concert at St. James school.
Photo Credit: Eric M. Hartman
A woman was in custody today for allegedly plowing her car through a group of about a dozen pedestrians leaving a Christmas concert at a Catholic school in Redondo Beach, killing three women and leaving a young boy pinned beneath a tire.
Police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests, but said 56-year- old Margo Bronstein may have had prescription drugs in her system. The Redondo Beach resident was being held on $300,000 bail on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and was tentatively scheduled to appear in court in Torrance on Friday.
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The group of pedestrians had just left the concert at St. James Catholic School and Parish around 8 p.m. Wednesday and was crossing Pacific Coast Highway at Vincent Street, when the driver of a northbound white Saturn ran the red light and slammed into the group, police said.
Police said the driver, with a child still being dragged by the car, swerved into the southbound lanes of PCH and slammed head-on into another vehicle.
Find out what's happening in Redondo Beachfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“Next thing I know, there’s a car coming through them all and people were flying in the air,” witness Michael Tovar said.
He said he approached the driver, who didn’t get out of her car following the crash.
“I yelled at her and I asked her, ‘What did you do?’ And she just looked at me, blank-eyed,” he said. “Me and another gentleman looked down and I thought it was a jacket that the car was on, but it was a little boy. And it turns out this little boy was my granddaughter’s school mate.”
Three of the pedestrians were killed -- Mary Wilson, 81, Saeko Matsumura, 87, and Martha Gaza, 36, all of Torrance, police said.
Bronstein suffered minor injuries, as did the driver of the vehicle she struck. Five children were among the 11 injured pedestrians. One child -- believed to be the one who was trapped under Bronstein’s car -- was in critical condition with head trauma and a bruised lung. One adult was also in critical condition with a head injury and a broken leg, police said.
“The community of St. James Catholic Church in Redondo Beach, and the entire Archdiocese of Los Angeles, ask everyone to join them in prayer during this time of tragedy and grief,” according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Photographer Eric M. Hartman and City News Service contributed to this report.
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