Police: Driver in wrong-way crash that killed two was going at freeway speeds, video shows

A driver going the wrong way on a Los Angeles street hit a city bus at what witnesses described as freeway speeds, killing two bus passengers and injuring several others. The security camera video shows the SUV never tried to stop before broadsiding the bus.

The crash occurred at about 5 p.m. Tuesday at De Soto Avenue and Nordhoff Street in Los Angeles.

Police said Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, was driving south in the northbound lanes of De Soto Avenue in a 2004 Ford Expedition when she ran a red light and hit the bus, which was traveling eastbound on a green light.

“The impact fully ejected one passenger from the bus and partially ejected a second,” the LAPD said in a statement. “Debris from the collision also damaged a blue 2024 Honda CR-V that was stopped, facing northbound.”

A witness who saw the crash from across a parking lot and gas station described the impact to KTLA.

“We’re all waiting on the red light on De Soto and off to our left this SUV comes speeding by at freeway speeds,” the witness said. “And there’s no (tire) screeching. She just t-boned the bus. It was the loudest crash you could imagine.”

Police arrested Rios on Wednesday on suspicion of murder. Her bail was set at $4 million. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office will decide what charges, if any, she will face.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed as Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46. Metro officials initially said late Tuesday that a third person had died, but later retracted that report.

Rios’ mother, Cindy Rios, told the Associated Press that she had not spoken to her daughter since the arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement.

“It’s just horrible,” Cindy Rios said in a phone interview Wednesday. “The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing.”