It was a quiet Saturday afternoon in San Diego, but it turned deadly when a driver struck a little boy on his bike and then backed up over him and just left. This occurred in Pacific Beach, and it has left the family and the entire community in shock. The little boy, six-year-old Hudson Stephen O’Loughlin, did not survive, and now the community is calling for more awareness about road safety in the area.
Everything happened around 3:44 p.m. on January 17, 2026. Hudson was riding his bike fast along the sidewalk on Pacific Beach Drive, near Ingraham Street, with his parents just nearby. His dad, Matthew O’Loughlin, was riding in front of him when this 32-year-old woman in an SUV turned right into an alley and hit the boy, knocking him right off.
A tweet from X.
She paused for maybe 10 seconds, but she didn’t even get out of the car. Then she took off south through the alley, rolling over Hudson a second time with both sets of wheels. They rushed him to the hospital, but he couldn’t pull through.
There’s this gut-wrenching clip from a CBS8 news report that’s been making the rounds on X, shared by @unlimited_ls. It’s short, like 15 seconds, and shows a guy describing what he saw from behind the SUV.
“Right after she hit the kid, she ran over him twice. Like, both wheels ran over the kid. She stopped right in front for about ten seconds,”
He says.
The video really drives home how the driver must’ve known what was happening, especially with the dad up ahead. It blew up online because of how raw it is, stirring up a lot of anger and spotlighting the whole mess. You can find similar stuff on CBS8’s website, and it lines up with what NBC 7 and FOX 5 reported.
Cops from the San Diego Police Department showed up fast. They tracked the SUV down to National City that same night and nabbed the woman. Early checks say booze wasn’t a factor.
The SDPD’s Traffic Division is handling the investigation, and they’re asking anyone with tips to hit up Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477. Apparently, cameras in the alley helped ID the vehicle, according to local news.
Hudson was a first-grader at McKinley Elementary in North Park. His mom, Juliana Kapovich, described him as “fearless, confident, and just bursting with energy.” He was into science, BMX riding, swimming, skating, and tinkering with Legos wanted to be a military scientist someday.
“He threw himself into everything he loved,”
Kapovich told places like CBS8.com. There are family pics floating around showing this happy, wide-eyed kid, and now everyone’s leaving tributes in his memory.
A makeshift memorial popped up at the spot almost right away flowers, candles, signs, notes from people in the area. Locals in Pacific Beach are talking about how sketchy those alleys and sidewalks can be, especially for kids on bikes.
“This one’s too close for comfort,”
one neighbor said to hypefresh.
The school brought in crisis counselors to help the kids and teachers deal with it. The family’s GoFundMe had already raised over $35,000 by the 18th, shooting for $100,000 to help with expenses.
This kind of thing points to a bigger problem. California logs more than 18,000 hit-and-runs a year, based on CHP stats. Across the U.S., 2,872 people got killed in hit-and-runs in 2023, and it’s often cyclists or walkers who bear the brunt.
In San Diego County alone, there were 28 deadly hit-and-runs in 2025, with about 40% hitting vulnerable folks like that. Experts say a lot of times, drivers bolt because they’re scared of getting caught, as breakdowns from sites like BikinginLA.com explain.
The driver’s charges are still up in the air could be vehicular manslaughter or felony hit-and-run. The cops are still digging, with stuff like speed, what she could see, and if there was any intent on the table. We might hear more after her court date, and SDPD’s looking for extra witnesses.
