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Security Camera Captures Violent Hit-and-Run That Injured Man in Crosswalk

The incident took place around 1 a.m. Monday at Florence Avenue near Roseberry Avenue.

A man walking across a Huntington Park street was critically injured early Monday when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver in a van. 

Close friends of the victim told NBCLA he was coming home from work as a laborer, riding two buses to get to the location where he was hit. After getting off the bus, he was crossing the street in a crosswalk about half a block away from his home when he was run down, friends said.

The incident, which was caught on camera, took place around 1 a.m. Monday at Florence Avenue near Roseberry Avenue.

Close friends, who identified the pedestrian as Jonathan Lopez, said they believe he began walking once the crosswalk light changed. Video shows that he gets more than halfway across the crosswalk when a white van hits him and violently throws him across the pavement.

A different camera angle showed that the driver continued on and did not stop.

Juan Carlos Medina, who heard the impact, said the van was going 60-70 mph.Medina lives nearby and works at Mr. Bike Shop, where cameras captured the hit-and-run. He said he heard the impact.

Rocio Gonzalez, who said Lopez had been living with her family for several years, also heard the impact.

"She sees him as his son," Gonzalez's son translated for his mother. "It hurts her to see him the way. It's not right."

Gonzalez said she has been visiting him in the Intensive Care Unit after her family received the call from the hospital that Lopez was a victim of a hit-and-run. 

"He's badly injured," Gonzalez said via a translator. "He's in a coma. He's on a ventilator, and he has a pretty bad head injury."

The close family friends are hoping surveillance video can help investigators track down the driver, saying the camera shows what appears to be a white cargo van with a ladder on its roof.

Family friends also believe that van blew a red light, with the victim having the right of way in the crosswalk. They said Lopez remains in critical condition with injuries that include broken ribs and a broken pelvis.

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