An off-duty Los Angeles police officer was killed Friday in a crash with a cement truck on the same Beverly Hills street where an officer was killed in March and a cement truck smashed into parked cars last week, police said.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck confirmed the officer killed was a 25-year veteran LAPD detective, but his name was not immediately released. He worked at the Southwest Division in South LA.
A poster at the Southwest Division station identified the fallen officer as Ernest Allen.
Fellow officers carried his body, shrouded in a flag, into a coroner's van.
"It's a tragedy that weighs heavy on my heart and the 10,000 officers on the Los Angeles Police Department," Beck said at an afternoon press conference. "Part of the way to properly mourn heroes like this is to emulate their lives and have a life of service like they did. There's no solution for this kind of grief."
He was in the area for a second job, Beck said.
Firefighters were called out to Loma Vista Drive at Doheny Road before 2 p.m. A cement truck, with its spilled load and a crushes pickup truck could be seen in the neighborhood.
The cement truck driver was in serious condition at a hospital, Beverly Hills police said.
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Ingrid Bisu felt what she thought was an earthquake, went outside and saw the cement truck driver on the ground outside of the truck.
She said it appeared the cement truck first hit a tree before colliding with the pickup truck.
"The pickup truck was a mess," she said. "It was crushed."
The site of Friday's crash was about 25 yards away from where LAPD Officer Nicholas Lee was killed March 7. He and his partner were responding to an emergency call when their car was hit by a dump truck.
On May 2, the driver of a cement truck was hurt when he crashed on Loma Vista, spilling cement.
Loma Vista Drive was expected to be closed to traffic between Doheny Road and Drury Lane through early Saturday as police investigated the fatal crash, Beverly Hills police Sgt. Max Subin said.
Bisu is concerned about the number of collisions there.
"I drive this every day and I think the city should do something about it."
Officials issued a 30-day moratorium for heavy vehicles on that street while they figure out how to deal with the danger.
After last Friday's crash, Beverly Hills police issued a statement saying officers have increased commercial vehicle enforcement in the area and that the city was "developing stringent regulations to control truck traffic on high-risk streets through the construction permit process."
The statement called it "a critical public safety issue" and said the Beverly Hills Police Department and other city departments "are aggressively working together to avoid future accidents."
Hours after the Beverly Hills crash, two LAPD officers were hurt in a patrol car crash in West LA.
NBC4's Christina Cocca, Kelly Goff, and Rosa Ordaz contributed to this report.
