A white Chevy Silverado swerved around a car illegally parked in a red zone, plowed into a neighborhood pupusa stand, and injured two pedestrians before backing up and speeding away in East Palo Alto on Monday afternoon. The truck’s driver has still not been identified, even after police used automated license plate readers to determine the vehicle’s direction and Fremont officers pulled it over on Interstate 880.
Cameras Led Police From East Palo Alto to a Fremont Stop
The crash happened around 2:30 p.m. Monday, according to NBC Bay Area, when the truck turned from East Bayshore Road onto Euclid Avenue and struck the food stand, which had sold pupusas as a well-liked fixture in the neighborhood for several years. Surveillance video captured the truck making that turn, and a witness handed police a photo of the vehicle along with its license plate. East Palo Alto police then used Flock license plate reader cameras to determine which direction the truck had fled, according to the station’s report.
That electronic trail led investigators to Fremont, where officers stopped the truck on I-880. The registered owner was arrested, but not for the crash itself — the arrest was for an unrelated weapons charge, per the same NBC Bay Area account. The owner denied driving the truck at the time of the collision, leaving open the question of who was actually behind the wheel when it struck the pedestrians and the pupusa stand. Police said the identities and conditions of the two injured people were not known as of the report.
A Blind Turn and a Red-Zone Car
The Euclid Avenue turn where the crash occurred is a blind one, and a parking enforcement officer told NBC Bay Area that a car parked in the red zone forced the truck to swerve around it just before impact. That same official acknowledged the city also bore some responsibility for not enforcing the red zone earlier, and East Palo Alto parking enforcement has since told drivers not to park there. City teams have increased enforcement at red zones in the area since the crash, and red-zone violations elsewhere in the city can result in a citation or a tow.
The crash lands squarely within a pattern local officials have been tracking for months. An analysis of 346 vehicle collisions in East Palo Alto between January 2024 and June 2025 found that hit-and-runs made up 53% of all traffic crashes in the city — 184 incidents, including 55 felony hit-and-runs — according to the East Palo Alto Sun. Illegal red-curb parking has also been a persistent problem: in March 2025 alone, city police issued 1,882 parking citations, including 191 specifically for red-curb violations, per the City of East Palo Alto.
City Had Already Moved to Tighten Enforcement
East Palo Alto launched expanded parking enforcement with LAZ Parking beginning in April 2026, targeting red zones and blocked driveways, according to the city. The crash occurred along the East Bayshore Road corridor near Euclid Avenue. The article also discusses food vendors along city streets…