Suspected Drunk Driver Crashes Into Police Car

PANORAMA CITY —  A suspected drunk driver hit the wrong car early Sunday when he smashed his pickup truck into an LAPD patrol car in Panorama City, police said.

The incident occurred about 1:50 a.m., when two officers from the Devonshire Division pulled over a car carrying five youths near Roscoe Boulevard and Lennox Avenue, said Officer Robert Kalstrom of the Valley Traffic Division.

As the officers got out of their car, another vehicle was approaching from behind, said Kalstrom.

“They heard the squeal of tires behind them, so they looked back and saw a pickup truck skidding in their direction,” Kalstrom said. “The officers dove out of the way. One dove left, one dove right.”

The impact of the crash pushed the police car into the rear of the other stopped vehicle, but the youths inside were not injured.

The officers, Kalstrom said, “both got skinned knees from getting out of the way, and one got a skinned hand.”

The officers’ names were not released.

The driver of the pickup, identified as Michael Fiore, 31, of North Hollywood, injured his right knee and was taken to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills.

He later was booked at Van Nuys Jail for suspicion of drunk driving, Kalstrom said.

The youths in the car that had been pulled over were not ticketed, nor was their vehicle damaged, police said.

The police car, however, was not so lucky.

“It’s totaled,” Kalstrom said.