Vehicle Plows Into Calif. School Group

Police say they have arrested the driver of a vehicle that barreled onto a sidewalk in Culver City, Calif., Wednesday, killing a teacher and injuring eight middle school students who were on their way back from a field trip.

Authorities say Laura Samayoa, 20, of Los Angeles, was booked for investigation of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and hit-and-run collision involving a fatality.

Sgt. Brian Fitzpatrick says Samayoa told police the crash was caused when her boyfriend grabbed the steering wheel during an argument.

An attorney representing the boyfriend - 19-year-old Reynaldo Cruz - tells a different story and says Cruz told him he didn't grab the car's steering wheel.

"He flatly denies that," says defense attorney Peter Navarro.

Samayoa and Cruz are being held on $400,000 bail. Police say Cruz, who turned himself in late Wednesday, was booked on the same charges as Samayoa.

Police identified the teacher who was killed as a woman who worked at Turning Point School, a private school that enrolls students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

"This is so sad because she was protecting the children," says Karen Nall, a parent whose three children were taught by the victim.

Authorities say the students, whose ages range from 10 to 13, had just left a nearby school when the car barreled onto the sidewalk about 3 p.m.

A witness says he was leaving work in the suburb just southwest of Los Angeles when he heard screeching tires. He said a woman he believed to be the driver tried to leave the scene but he stopped her.

"I literally hear the sounds of screeching tires and an impact sound and I looked across the street and I saw bodies flying," Tennyson Collins told KCAL-TV. "Someone standing on the curb said 'Well, the driver's taking off down there.'"

Collins says that's what he saw – the driver climbing out the window of the car and breaking into a run – at which point he started running himself, successfully chasing her down.

"She said, 'I wasn't the driver.' And I said, 'You were in the car. You need to come back as a witness,"' Collins recalls, adding that the woman then told him she couldn't go back.

"She said she had a 2-year-old child, and she was going to jail and was really scared," Collins said.

"The kids were screaming, they were in shock and one kid definitely had a broken leg. Another kid, a cable that's on the street over there was wrapped around the kid's neck, he couldn't breathe, so we tried moving that out of the way, but I didn't want to move the kids because I was afraid that any movement would hurt them," said Dennis Bonilla, another witness, also in a KCAL-TV interview. "I just wanted to make sure they were protected from any additional injury."

Three children are in good condition at UCLA Medical Center and two were in fair condition, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Two other children are in stable condition at Brotman Medical Center, and one who was admitted there in stable condition was later transferred to another facility.