A 28-year-old woman was behind bars Saturday on suspicion of driving under the influence, which authorities suspect led to a rollover crash in a Monterey Park residential neighborhood that killed three people and left her and her 7-year-old daughter injured.
Desiree Perez, of Monterey Park, was booked into jail on suspicion of felony DUI, child endangerment and three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter in connection with the Friday morning crash, which occurred just past 12:30 a.m. along Graves Avenue near Cecil Street, Monterey Park Police Capt. Bill Cuevas said.
She was being held in jail on $500,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in Alhambra Superior Court Monday, according to jail records.
The five people in a Jeep Cherokee that Perez was driving were leaving a family home and headed out, Cuevas said, though specifically where they were headed was not known.
The Jeep was traveling westbound toward Garfield Avenue when the driver hit a curb, a tree, a wall and three cars in front of a home, Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese said Friday. One of the passengers who died was ejected and landed on the roof of the home.
While Perez and her daughter were wearing seat belts, the three who died were not believed to be wearing safety equipment, Cuevas said Saturday. Perez and the girl were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, with Cuevas saying Saturday the girl was taken just for observation.
Cuevas said one of the deceased was Perez’s brother, but police did not release the identities of any of the deceased, except that they were two men and a woman.
One of the men was identified Saturday by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office as 34-year-old Alexander Cota Jr. He died in a vehicle, according to the coroner’s report.
All five people in the Jeep knew each other, but whether they all lived together was unknown, Cuevas said.
How fast the Jeep was traveling before the crash was not yet known.
No one inside the home was injured, though one of the residents, Felix Lam, said Friday that windows at the house were open, and that smoke, dust and debris got inside.
Security footage showed the SUV was already sideways and rolling along the sidewalk when it approached their home, Lam said. It hit their three cars – a Toyota Camry, a Prius and a Prius C, smashing the window of one, landing on top of another and totaling the third.
