By Jorge Casuso

May 3, 2021 -- A 50-year-old homeless woman was struck and killed by
a car Sunday night on a 10 Freeway on-ramp, marking the first pedestrian fatality in Santa Monica this year.

The accident was reported shortly after 10:30 p.m. on the on-ramp to the eastbound freeway at Cloverfield Boulevard, according to the California Highway Patrol (CPH).

The vehicle was traveling at about 60 miles per hour, indicating the victim was near the freeway when she was struck, said CPH Officer Franco Pepi, the spokesman for the West LA station.

It is not known the direction she was walking in, Pepi said.

"It is unknown if she was walking across or with the flow of traffic," he said. "The motorist didn't see her."

Santa Monica police officers arrived on the scene and administered CPR until Fire Department paramedics arrived, said Lt. Rudy Flores, the police department spokesman.

The SMFD paramedics pronounced the victim dead at the scene, Pepi said.

Authorities don't know if the woman was staying at one of the homeless encampments that crop up near freeway on-ramps in the LA area.

"Almost every on-ramp has (an encampment) nowadays," Pepi said.

SMPD's Homeless Liaison Program (HLP) team has been working with Caltrans to clear out the encampments under the Santa Monica freeway overpasses and on the embankments rear the ramps, Lt. Flores said.

All of the encampments on the northside of the freeway near the exit ramps have been cleared, but a few remain near the on-ramp, he said.

"It's basically against the law to be present in the embankment area," Flores said. "We work with the service providers and try to do citations to get them out."

Sometimes the encampments "pop up a few days later," Flores said.

Calrans has also been clearing the brush to make it easier for police to spot the illegal encampments, he said.

Sunday's accident marked the first pedestrian fatality in Santa Monica in more than six months.

On October 13, a woman was fatally struck by a car while walking in a crosswalk at the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Stewart Street, "Woman Fatally Struck by Car at Major Pico Intersection," October 13, 2020).

It was one of three pedestrian fatalities in Santa Monica last year.