Los Angeles County, CA, October 13 – A collision between a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrol vehicle and a hatchback sent two deputies and the hatchback’s driver to the hospital late Monday night, according to the LASD. The California Highway Patrol and the LASD both responded to the scene to assist. The deputies’ vehicle came to a stop after striking a fire hydrant during the crash, LASD officials said.
West Athens Crash Involving Sheriff’s Patrol Car Sends Three to Hospital
The crash happened at the intersection of Vermont Avenue and 120th Street in West Athens, with the LASD placing the time at approximately 11:53 p.m. on October 12, 2026. Investigators said the patrol car was heading south on Vermont Avenue when it crossed into the path of a black hatchback traveling west on 120th Street, resulting in the collision.
The patrol car’s path shifted rightward after the collision, and it ended up lodged on top of a fire hydrant positioned at the southwest corner of the intersection, the LASD said. The hydrant’s damage caused water to flow out onto the roadway, and the surrounding area lost electrical power as a consequence of the crash.
Both deputies and the hatchback’s driver were hospitalized with injuries the LASD described as minor following the crash. According to the department, the deputies were anticipated to be released once treatment was complete, while the civilian’s condition remained unreported as of the department’s most recent statement on the incident, authorities noted.
The LASD has not released the cause of the collision or said whether any citations resulted from it. The ages and names of the deputies and the hatchback’s driver have not been made public, and no further updates on the civilian’s condition or the extent of the power outage have been released.
What the at-fault driver is required to carry, and why it often is not enough
Vehicle Code section 16056 sets California’s minimum liability limits, and they changed recently. For a policy issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2025, the minimum is $30,000 for injury to or death of one person, $60,000 where two or more people are hurt, and $15,000 for property damage. Policies written before that date may still carry the older minimum of $15,000, $30,000 and $5,000.
Those are floors, not typical limits, and a single hospital admission can exhaust the lower figure before any other loss is counted. Where the at-fault driver carries the minimum, the uninsured and underinsured motorist cover on the injured person’s own policy is often the part that matters most, and it is worth checking early rather than after the other insurer has made an offer.
The deadline that applies to a claim like this one
Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. The same two years covers an injury claim and a death claim; there is no separate, shorter period because someone died.
If a public agency may be involved, the deadline is much shorter
Where a city, county, transit agency, school district or state agency is a potential defendant, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim to be presented to that entity within six months. The six months runs from when the claim accrues, and the claim is presented to the entity itself: a school district and a city are separate public entities with separate processes.
Two things follow that are easy to get wrong. The six months is the deadline to present the claim, not the deadline to sue, and it attaches to the public entity as a defendant rather than to the location of the crash, so a case with both a private and a public defendant is not entirely governed by it. Once the entity mails a written rejection, Government Code section 945.6 allows six months to file suit, which is shorter than the window that just closed. If no written rejection is ever sent, that period is two years from accrual.
Missing the six months is not automatically the end of it. Government Code section 911.6(b) requires the board to grant a late claim application on any of six grounds, including where the person was a minor, or was physically or mentally incapacitated, for the whole of the six months or for any part of it.
Talking to someone about it
Culver Legal represents people injured in collisions across California. A conversation about what happened costs nothing, and we work on a contingency fee, which means there is no fee unless we win. If we do not win, we do not pass the case costs on to you either.
Nothing on this page is legal advice about any particular case, and the facts of a reported collision often change as the investigation continues.
