{"id":429508,"date":"2026-08-11T05:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T05:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/429508\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T05:46:10","slug":"victim-in-culver-city-hit-and-run-spree-speaks-out-as-he-continues-to-recover-from-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/429508\/","title":{"rendered":"Victim in Culver City hit-and-run spree speaks out as he continues to recover from injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly two months after suffering a fractured spine and skull, 19-year-old Brandon Mendez is trying to focus on recovering rather than wasting his energy on hating the Perris man accused of intentionally crashing into people in Culver City.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dash camera video shows 45-year-old Juan Luis Estrada allegedly running over Mendez while the teen took a break from his job at Big 5 Sporting Goods. As jarring as the footage is, Mendez recalled the moment he tried to get out of the suspect’s way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was heading toward 7-Eleven,” Mendez said. “I was crossing my green light. I see a car running all the red lights and almost hitting people. I’m just going to move out of the way. So I move out of the way, but he still swerves into me. I don’t remember anything after that.”<\/p>\n

On top of the fractured spine and skull, Mendez said he suffered internal bleeding and doctors had to remove his spleen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutors accuse Estrada<\/a>\u00a0of using a carjacked vehicle to run over nine more people during his alleged cross-town crime spree. The Culver City Police Department arrested Estrada after he led officers on a pursuit into downtown Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He faces 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of carjacking, one count of evading a peace officer causing serious bodily injury, one count of battery on a peace officer and three counts of felony hit-and-run.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Estrada’s being held on a $10.25 million bail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If he needs help, he should get help,” Mendez said. “Other than that, I think he’s a danger to society.”<\/p>\n

Mendez is slowly returning to work at Big 5 and still takes a walk during his break.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Life really changes in an instant,” Mendez said. “It’s crazy. I’d say I changed. I think I’m a lot more appreciative of things. Life is beautiful. Don’t take it for granted.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly two months after suffering a fractured spine and skull, 19-year-old Brandon Mendez is trying to focus on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-429508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429508","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=429508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}