8 hit, woman arrested fleeing North Vegas crash

NORTH LAS VEGAS — A teenage woman who appeared to have been living out of her car may have been under the influence of drugs when the vehicle she was driving struck eight pedestrians outside a North Las Vegas storefront church, police said Friday.

One of the people injured in the 11 p.m. Thursday crash outside the Iglesia de Cristo church was a pregnant woman, North Las Vegas police Sgt. Tim Bedwell said, but none of the injuries was reported to be life-threatening.

The driver had a Utah identification card putting her age at 18, but her identity wasn’t immediately confirmed, Bedwell said. She didn’t have a driver’s license.

The vehicle, a white 2000 Mitsubishi Galant with Utah license plates, was registered to someone else and wasn’t reported stolen. It was impounded by police.

The woman told police she had been in Las Vegas for about a week and had been sleeping in the vehicle, Bedwell said.

Witnesses told police the car mowed down people standing near their cars parked at the curb on Losee Road — a dark industrial area lined by auto repair shops, block walls and chain fences just south of busy Lake Mead Boulevard. Bedwell said it wasn’t immediately clear how fast the car was going.

“If a car came down that road at night at 35 mph, people would say it was going too fast,” the police sergeant said.

The driver initially got out of the vehicle, then got back behind the wheel and drove away, police said. She was arrested less than a quarter-mile away, after the vehicle entered an open dirt work zone at the end of the dead-end street and crashed into a parked Caterpillar road grading machine.

Bedwell said the woman tried to run, but was captured after police surrounded the area. The driver displayed signs of impairment and gave consent for investigators to draw a blood sample, police said in a statement. Toxicology results could take several weeks.

Bedwell said the woman was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and booked into the Las Vegas city jail pending a court appearance on eight felony hit-and-run charges, eight misdemeanor failing to render aid charges and several other misdemeanors including obstructing a police officer. She allegedly provided police a false name.

A court date wasn’t immediately known, and it wasn’t clear if the woman had been assigned a lawyer.