One Person Dead, LAPD Officer Injured in Overnight Crash That Shut Down 405 in Brentwood
Los Angeles — The body stayed on the pavement for hours. Long after the ambulances had left, long after the first set of cones went up and the flashing lights turned the freeway into a surreal nighttime tunnel, it was still there covered in a white sheet, lying in the fast lane of the southbound 405.
It was just after 2 a.m. when the crash happened. A silver pickup truck had stopped in the carpool lane near Moraga Drive, and within moments, it turned into a three-car wreck that left one person dead and two others seriously hurt. One of the injured was a Los Angeles police officer.
By sunrise, the freeway was still locked down. Drivers who hit the road early were stuck for hours, confused at first, until news filtered in: there’d been a fatal crash. And a cop was involved.
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No Good Answers Yet
Authorities aren’t saying much. The California Highway Patrol confirmed the crash happened around 1:58 a.m. The LAPD officer was driving one of the vehicles involved. They were rushed to UCLA Medical Center.
We do not know their name. We don’t know how bad their injuries are. But we know this: senior LAPD officials and a department chaplain showed up at the hospital not long after the ambulance pulled in.
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By 2:22 a.m., CHP issued a full SigAlert. The southbound 405 was completely closed at Getty Center Drive. Skirball and Sepulveda on-ramps were also blocked off. Then northbound lanes were shut down too, just before 3:00 a.m. A rescue helicopter touched down on the freeway.
At 4:23 a.m., northbound lanes reopened. But southbound traffic did not budge for hours. Thousands of people were late. Some turned around. Others waited and watched.
No matter what app they opened, there was no alternate route. Just the blue and red glow of the scene, and the quiet knowledge that someone was not going to make it home.
One man who was stuck nearby; an Uber driver from Inglewood said he stayed parked for nearly 90 minutes. “You see lights and think, maybe it’s a flat tire or a fender bender,” he said. “Then you see the helicopter land. And then you see the sheet.”
Another driver, heading to Burbank for an early flight, turned around when she saw the highway completely dark ahead. “Waze didn’t even know what to do,” she said. “It just kept rerouting me into the gridlock.”
People were frustrated. But no one was angry not after they realized someone had died. Not after hearing a police officer was in the hospital.
Cause Of Accident
CHP is still investigating. So is LAPD. No one’s said what caused the crash yet — not whether the truck broke down, or was left abandoned, or whether the driver inside it was under the influence or asleep.
We do not know who was at fault.
We do not even know who the victim is. Their body was left on the pavement for nearly five hours. It takes time for the coroner to arrive. And you do not rush through this kind of thing.
By 7 a.m., crews had cleared the scene. Traffic began to inch forward again. But a lot of drivers carried that image with them — the kind that sticks with you for a few days.
The Thing About These Stories
There will be updates, of course. The LAPD will say something. CHP might release more about what happened maybe there is dashcam footage, maybe traffic cam video. Eventually, we will know who the officer is, and we will find out if they are going to be okay.
But this morning? A lot of people just woke up to the sound of helicopters overhead. A lot of drivers just sat in traffic. And somewhere in the city, someone got the call. Or maybe they got the knock. That unbearable knock.
And for them, it is not just traffic news. It is their whole life, split into before and after.
If you are driving late, take it slow. Pull over if you’re tired. Do not second guess a weird sound your car is making. Whatever it is, it can wait. Getting home safe is what matters.
