Four Years After Baby Killed on Super Bowl Sunday, Neighborhood Gets a Traffic Light

It took four years, but the intersection where an 11-month old was killed by a drunk driver will finally get a stoplight Monday.

Four years after a drunk driver killed a baby on Super Bowl Sunday, a Los Angeles neighborhood is getting stoplight at the intersection where the child died.

The new light at the intersection of Bonnie Brae Street and Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles’ blue collar Westlake District will be switched on Monday morning, even as football fans are recovering from a Super Bowl day that authorities hope will be less bloody – and involve fewer drunk driving crashes – than previous years.

More: LA Leads Nation in Hit/Run Collisions

At Bonnie Brae and Olympic, where 11-month old Yudith Ausencio died in her stroller in 2009, Councilman Ed Reyes plans to dedicate the light along with children and parents from the neighborhood.

Reyes said he asked city transportation officials to install the light after Yudith was killed. The crash also injured the baby’s mother and 5-year-old sister.

The crash that struck Yudith and her family was a hit-and-run, like nearly half of the collisions in Los Angeles.

This one was so horrific that it attracted the attention of then-Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, who held a press conference to provide details.

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"The driver struck them and then drove away, without stopping, leaving a horrible and deadly crime scene," Bratton said.

Hours after the crash, police arrested Henry Yovanni Moreno, 30, of South Gate, who was charged with felony hit-and-run, felony DUI, and drunken vehicular manslaughter. The mother and five-year-old eventually survived their injuries.

At the time, police credited quick thinking by a witness who followed the driver from the crash scene at Bonnie Brae Street and Olympic Boulevard shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday and got the car's license plate number.

Yudith’s mother and sister both survived the crash, Reyes said.

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