LAPD officer fatally strikes woman near Halloween party in Van Nuys

The collision was reported at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, October 31, 2026, near Woodman Avenue and Bessemer Street in the San Fernando Valley. MyNewsLA, citing the Los Angeles Police Department, places it in the 6100 block of Woodman Avenue. The initial reports were published November 1; the fatal collision happened the night before.⁠1⁠2

LAPD said officers were responding to reports of a fight among a large group of people at a Halloween party when one officer struck the pedestrian nearby, according to CBS Los Angeles. That explains why police were heading to the area. It does not yet explain how a patrol vehicle and a woman on foot came into each other’s path.⁠1

The distinction is important because the reported fight supplies context, not a finding about responsibility. Nothing established in the reporting places the woman among those reportedly fighting or confirms that she attended the party. Being struck near a gathering does not establish a connection to whatever brought officers there.

MyNewsLA describes the officer’s assignment more generally as a “disturbance call.” That is compatible with CBS’s account of a reported fight, rather than a competing explanation. Both accounts rely on LAPD for the circumstances of the response; neither independently establishes what happened at the party or how the officer was driving before the impact.⁠1⁠2

County News TV adds a scene account describing radio traffic requesting assistance for a collision involving a patrol vehicle and a pedestrian in the same block. It also reports that authorities attempted aid. That account helps establish the immediate aftermath, but it does not resolve the movements that led to the woman being struck.⁠11

Its October 31 incident account carries an 11:32 p.m. timestamp. That should not be treated as a contradiction of the approximately 11:30 p.m. time reported by CBS and MyNewsLA. The accounts do not establish two precisely measured impact times: one gives an approximate incident time, while the other timestamps a scene report describing requests for assistance. The available evidence supports a late-Saturday-night collision, not a minute-by-minute reconstruction.⁠1⁠2⁠11

The collision remains under investigation, with no finding of fault established in the initial accounts. The central driving facts are still missing: the patrol vehicle’s speed and direction, whether its emergency lights or siren were operating, and the woman’s path. The reporting also does not establish the traffic-signal or crosswalk circumstances, or who had the right of way.⁠1⁠2⁠11

Those are not peripheral details. They are the difference between knowing that an officer was answering a call and understanding why a pedestrian died. A response to a reported disturbance cannot, by itself, answer whether the vehicle’s approach or the circumstances of the crossing contributed to the collision. Nor does the seriousness of the reported call settle any question about the driving.

The officer’s name and the agency or unit leading the investigation have not been established in these reports. LAPD is the department whose officer was involved, but that fact alone does not identify who is conducting the collision inquiry or whether an outside agency is participating.⁠1⁠2⁠11

The officer’s remaining at the scene is a confirmed circumstance, not a conclusion about what preceded the impact. For now, the public account establishes the fatal result and the reason police say they were responding. What it still lacks is the explanation connecting those two things—and the evidence needed to assess responsibility.⁠1