{"id":487620,"date":"2026-10-07T03:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/487620\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T03:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:32:07","slug":"hit-and-run-driver-kills-83-year-old-father-remains-on-the-loose-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/487620\/","title":{"rendered":"Hit-and-run driver kills 83-year-old father, remains on the loose \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The family of an 83-year-old man who was beloved in his community is pleading for the driver who struck and killed him in South Los Angeles to come forward.<\/p>\n<p>Akil Batani-Khalfani, who was lovingly known as \u201cBird,\u201d was killed on Sept. 30 when a hit-and-run driver struck him near the intersection of 69th Street and Central Avenue. Now, candles and a portrait of Khalfani rest at the site where the father and grandfather died.<\/p>\n<p>Family and loved ones gathered on Tuesday for a vigil in honor of his life. He left his mark on the community with a legacy that includes his work as a former Youth Correctional Counselor for California Youth Authority and a former Youth Gang Counselor for the Los Angeles Community Youth Gang Services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can go anywhere and anybody will tell you, they had everything great to say about my dad,\u201d said D\u2019Ixara Batani-Khalfani, Akil\u2019s daughter. \u201cWhoever has any information, any details \u2013 do not hide it \u2026 What if this was your family? What if this was your father, your mother, whoever?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Khalfani is survived by his 15 children and 43 grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone with information on the hit-and-run is encouraged to contact the Los Angeles Police Department\u2019s South Bureau at 323-786-5077.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of an 83-year-old man who was beloved in his community is pleading for the driver who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,2088],"class_list":["post-487620","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","tag-south-los-angeles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487620","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=487620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}