Possible Street-Racing Crash Into Building Leaves 1 Dead, Car Demolished in Pico-Robertson

LOS ANGELES -- One person died Thursday morning when his or her vehicle slammed into a building in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood in what investigators said could be a street-racing incident.

The crash happened just before 6 a.m. on Pico Boulevard near South Crest Drive.

Los Angeles firefighters arrived quickly, but the driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The victim's identity has not yet been released.

A building at the corner was seen with a hole in the wall where it was struck by the vehicle.

The vehicle was westbound on Pico Boulevard when the driver lost control and crashed into a building, which appears to be vacant and was unoccupied at the time, Lt. Lonnie Tiano with the Los Angeles Police Department's West Traffic Division said. No one else was injured.

Tiano indicated at a morning news conference that police were trying to determine what led to the crash and if speed was a factor, but the West Traffic Division said in a tweet that the incident "appears to be a violent crash from possible street racing."

The car is a late-model Infiniti, although Tiano said it was in such bad shape that investigators had to use registration information just to determine the vehicle's make.

The car is registered to a man, but the driver's gender was not being released until a coroner's investigator arrived, Tiano said.

Westbound lanes of busy Pico Boulevard were closed down while firefighters worked the scene.