Teenager who struck woman, baby in Venice hit-and-run is fatally shot in Palmdale

A teenager who was shot to death this week in Palmdale had recently been released from juvenile detention after striking a woman and her baby in Venice with a stolen car in 2021, authorities said.

Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Kristopher Baca, 17, was walking to his grandmother’s home when a red sedan pulled up behind him in the 38000 block of 11th Street East, said Det. Ray Lugo of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Someone in the car fired “numerous” shots at Baca, who was struck several times and died at the scene, Lugo said.

Baca was identified by a law enforcement official as the driver of a car captured on surveillance cameras in August 2021 accelerating toward a mother who was pushing her child in a stroller near Speedway and Galleon Street. The car had been stolen, the law enforcement officials said, and the head-on collision sent the mother and child flying over the hood of the car, which then sped off.

The mother and child survived, and Baca, then 16, was arrested. The woman criticized Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón after the teenager, who pleaded guilty to felony charges of assault and hit-and-run, was sentenced in June to a range of five to seven months in a juvenile camp, KTTV Channel 11 reported.

Baca served his term at Camp Glenn Rockey in San Dimas, according to the law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity. It’s unclear when he was released, but the official said he was at the camp as recently as October, when he was disciplined for getting into a fight.