Police: California doctor hit by car, stabbed to death in intersection

A doctor in California was run down in the street while cycling before being viciously stabbed by the driver in the incident, police said on Thursday. 

The Orange County Sheriff's Department said in a statement on Thursday that on Wednesday of this week deputies responded to reports of a traffic incident to find Michael John Mammone lying in a Dana Point intersection with "sever injuries." 

Mammone was riding his bike on the Pacific Coast Highway thoroughfare "when he was struck from behind by the suspect vehicle," police said.

"The driver of the vehicle, Vanroy Evan Smith, 39, from Long Beach, exited his vehicle and assaulted Mammone with a knife," the statement continued. 

Mammone was pronounced dead at a local hospital while Smith was taken into custody. 

A local witness, meanwhile, told station ABC7 that her family heard the suspect "uttering racial slurs about 'white privilege'," though investigators with the Orange County Sheriff's Department "had not been told of that allegation," the station said.