Cars collide in background as TV journalist reports on ‘one of LA’s most dangerous streets’

KTLA anchor Gene Kang experienced a literal car crash interview when his segment was interrupted by a collision

A Los Angeles news anchor reporting on a dangerous road junction had his point proven for him when two cars collided right behind him.

Gene Kang, a reporter for the LA TV news station KTLA 5, was presenting a story about a deadly hit and run at the intersection of West 84th Street and Hoover Street last Thursday.

In the video, Mr Kang stands in front of the sunbaked junction and tells the camera says: "Hoover Street here, officials say, is one of the most dangerous streets in all of Los Angeles, and now –"

At that moment, a navy blue car swings out of the road next to him and into another car, before wheeling around, ramming through a series of bollards, and appearing to speed away.

Mr Kang or another member of the news crew can be heard faintly in the background saying "What the..."

Mr Kang later said: "Our security guard Walter Mann yelled ‘get back’ and we moved as the car came racing towards us. It veered away at the last second and T-boned the car."

He said the news crew had called the Los Angeles police department, helped the victims, and given officers their video, as well as the blue car's licence plate.

Officers told Mr Kang that they believed the blue car's driver may have been escaping the scene of a crime. It is not clear whether the car later stopped.

Authorities in LA have offered a reward of $50,000 (£38,348) for any information on the hit and run incident, which happened at the same junction on 26 February.

Police said an "impatient" driver had tried to get around other cars who had stopped to let a family cross the road, hitting 42-year-old father Jemmy Chavarria.

In what officers called "an amazing act of heroism", Mr Chavarria pushed his wife and two-year-old son out of the way before the car struck him. He later died in hospital.

In 2015, the Los Angeles Times named nearby 87th and Hoover as Los Angeles County's 180th most dangerous junction for pedestrians, out of a total of nearly 26,000 where collisions had occurred.

Another report by a personal injury law firm placed two Hoover Street junctions in its top 100 most dangerous intersections in all of California.