Six-Year-Old Becomes 4th to Die After Driver Plows through Crosswalk

A 6-year-old boy injured when about a dozen pedestrians were struck by a vehicle as they left a Catholic Church in Redondo Beach Wednesday, becoming the fourth fatality resulting from the crash, The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office said today.

The announcement of Samuel Gaza’s death by Lt. David Smith of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office early today came hours before the woman blamed for the accident was to appear in a Torrance courtroom.

Police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests, but said 56-year- old Margo Bronstein may have had prescription drugs in her system when she struck the pedestrians around 8 p.m. Wednesday. The Redondo Beach resident is being held in lieu of $300,000 bail on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.

Classes at St. James Catholic School were cancelled this week and will resume after the Christmas break. Counselors have been onsite all week to help the grieving students and their families. Scheduled masses at St. James Thursday brought families, staff and children together with special prayers for the victims, said Monica Valencia, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The school will hold a candlelight service for St. James parishioners Friday evening.

The group of pedestrians had just left the concert at St. James Catholic School and Parish and was crossing Pacific Coast Highway at Vincent Street, when the driver of a northbound white Saturn ran the red light and slammed into them, police said.

Police said the driver, with a child still being dragged by the car -- the child was the boy who has now died --swerved into the southbound lanes of PCH and slammed head-on into another vehicle.

“Next thing I know, there’s a car coming through them all and people were flying in the air,” witness Michael Tovar said, adding 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 -- the one who was trapped under Bronstein’s car and who has succumbed -- was in critical condition with head trauma and a bruised lung. That child was parish kindergarten student Samuel Gaza, Martha Gaza’s son, according to relatives and church Monsignor Michael Meyers.

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.

Dozens of parishioners attended a midday Mass at the church Thursday to pray for the victims.

The Los Angeles Times, citing Department of Motor Vehicles records, reported that Bronstein had a clean driving record. She has some driving restrictions, such as using hand-controlled brakes and being required to have an additional right-side mirror, The Times reported.

On her Facebook page, Bronstein posted photos Tuesday from a trip to Disneyland, where she apparently went with family on Monday to celebrate her birthday. The photos show her using a mobility scooter.

• -City News Service
• Photo: Margo Bronstein, Credit: Redondo Beach Police Department
• Photo: Redondo Beach crash scene, Photo Credit: Patch Photographer Eric M. Hartman