All lanes of eastbound Interstate 8 near Grantville are expected to remain closed for several more hours as California Highway Patrol officers investigate a fatal crash that killed a motorist and a La Mesa police officer who stopped to help late Monday, officials said.<\/p>\n
According to the CHP,\u00a0 the incident began shortly after 10:20 p.m. when a driver on eastbound I-8 lost control and overturned on the highway near Fairmount\u00a0 Avenue. That vehicle was hit by another car.<\/p>\n
La Mesa police Officer Lauren Craven, 25, came upon the crash and stopped to help the motorists. While she was taking the report of the initial accident, another car driving eastbound on I-8 struck the officer, CHP officials said.<\/p>\n
Craven and the driver involved in the initial rollover crash were both killed.<\/p>\n
Police officials said CHP officers performed lifesaving efforts on Craven but she died before she could be taken to a hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe La Mesa Police Department would like to thank our allied agencies for their unwavering support,\u201d the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Freeway lanes were closed after the crash. A CHP spokesperson said the closure is expected to continue until noon, although that could change.<\/p>\n
All eastbound traffic on I-8 was being diverted to southbound I-15, while traffic in both directions of I-15 to eastbound I-8 was diverted off at Fairmount Avenue and Montezuma Road.<\/p>\n
Craven joined the department in February 2024, and was assigned to the Patrol Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask that the La Mesa community keep Officer Craven, her family, and the La Mesa Police Department in their thoughts and prayers\u201d said a statement from the La Mesa Police Department.<\/p>\n
City News Service contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 21, 2025 at 7:58 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All lanes of eastbound Interstate 8 near Grantville are expected to remain closed for several more hours as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,138,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-16239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}