The mother of three children who died while crossing a busy street to get to their school bus had complained to her kids' school district about the hazard years before her children were tragically killed, her friend and neighbor told NBC 5.

Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation said in a statement that beginning Thursday, the bus stop on State Road 25 will be relocated into Meiser Park following the death of twin 6-year-old boys and their 9-year-old sister. 

In addition, school Superintendent Blaine Conley said a transportation safety review committee will examine all bus stop locations "to ensure our children are transported safely." 

But some residents say the change came too late. 

Heather Crispen said her family friend, the mother of the children fatally struck Tuesday while boarding their school bus, had fought for years with their school district to have the bus pull into the trailer park where they lived. Instead, the children were forced to cross a busy stretch of road. 

"They told us because they were not a special needs child, they were not going to pull into the park," Crispen said, noting that her own children were just steps ahead of the four children hit by a pickup truck on North State Road 25 in Rochester, Indiana. "It could have been prevented a long time ago... shouldn't have to come to her losing half her family for the school to do something about it." 

The crash happened around 7:30 a.m. in Fulton County near 4600 N. State Road 25, according to Indiana State Police. 

Authorities said the children were at their bus stop, crossing the street with the stop-arm on the bus out when a vehicle hit the kids.

Nine-year-old Alivia Stahl and 6-year-old twins Xavier and Mason Ingle were killed. 

"The parents are destroyed. They're never going to see their kids again," said Elgin Ingle, the uncle of the three children killed. "The surviving daughter has no siblings anymore and mother had to run to the aid of children as they lay there lifeless on the concrete. They're doing as bad as you'd expect a parent to be doing." 

Eleven-year-old Maverick Lowe was also injured in the crash and airlifted to a hospital in Fort Wayne. 

“We would like to thank those who have prayed for our family and the families of those involved in yesterday’s tragedy," the boy's parents wrote in a statement released by Indiana State Police. "Maverik is currently in stable condition. Our family is focused on his recovery at this time and requests privacy as we heal together.”

It was a crash state police said was unlike any other they'd seen.

A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of the three children.  Alyssa Shepherd was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury.

She was reportedly cooperative with police, picked up at her place of employment and later released on $15,000 bond. It was unclear if she had an attorney. 

"I just can't imagine the pain that family is going through," Sgt. Tony Slocum with the Indiana State Police's Peru District. "The one thing I'd like to tell people - we all have a responsibility to share the road in a safe manner. I don't know why this crash - why this person did not see the stop arm extended but we all need to pay a little more attention because it's all our responsibility to make sure our children get to and from school safely."

There were no children on the school bus at the time of the crash. 

The accident happened near Rochester, about 92 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help the family of the children killed. 

A 21-year-old woman was killed Wednesday night when a robber with a mask jumped in a car, demanded to be driven and then - in front of two children - shot her twice in the head before fleeing with cash, according to Chicago police.

The incident took place at around 9:22 p.m. in the 2200 block of North Long Avenue in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on the city's Northwest Side, officials said.

Authorities said Mayra Coronel was a passenger in a parked vehicle, with another woman in the driver's seat and two children in the back, when an unknown male jumped in the backseat of the car and ordered the driver to begin driving.

They traveled a few blocks east, stopping near the intersection of West Belden and North Lawler avenues, where officials said the suspect shot Coronel twice in the head before exiting the car and running away with an unknown amount of cash he took from her.

Coronel was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police and the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

No one was in custody as of Thursday morning in connection with the shooting, according to police, who continue to investigate.

Activist and writer Shaun King announced Thursday that he is bringing back Frederick Douglass' 19th-century abolitionist newspaper — with the blessing of Douglass' family.

The North Star, started by Douglass and Martin Delany in 1847, will be resurrected online, with a news app, a website, podcasts, and a nightly news broadcast, King wrote in a Medium blog post. He added that he received the "blessing and permission of the family of Frederick Douglass."

"We’re not just here to change the news — we aim to change the world," King said.

King and friend Ben Dixon are first building a launch team at BuildingTheNorthStar.com and hope to have 100,000 people on board by Nov. 15. The team then plans to start a public membership drive with the goal of having 25,000 members by the end of 2018.

The North Star became "one of the most influential African American anti-slavery publications of the pre-Civil War era," according to Britannica. The paper was named for the star that escaping slaves used at night as a guide to freedom. Its motto read: “Right is of no sex—Truth is of no color—God is the Father of us all, and we are brethren.”

In his blog post, King honored the way Douglass and Delany utilized The North Star, writing, "they knew they needed a newspaper that represented the cause of liberation with urgency, clarity, heart, and soul."

"We need that right now," King wrote. "This past week proved that to me. And we’re going to build it together."

King is a civil rights activist known for his work on social media. Earlier this year, he founded the Real Justice PAC, which aims to help fill district attorney positions with "reform-minded prosecutors" who are "committed to using the powers of their office to fight structural racism and defend our communities from abuse by state power."

The Los Angeles Kings will celebrate Día de Los Muertos Night on Thursday at Staples Center during their game against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The team will be kicking off their first Spanish-language radio broadcasts since the 1997-98 season. It is the first of 10 that will be broadcast in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.

"As our game grows it is important we continue to reach as many fans as possible and this new partnership with ESPN Deportes is a tremendous opportunity to help introduce hockey to a new audience," said Kings President Luc Robitaille. "I was a player with the Kings when we broadcast games in Spanish. It is exciting to have this opportunity again."

Limited ticket packages, including a discounted ticket and a Kings Día De Los Muertos T-shirt are available at LAKings.com/diadelosmuertos. 

According to the Kings senior director, communications and heritage, the Kings will revisit the amount of Spanish-language radio broadcasts in future seasons.

Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, is celebrated from Oct. 31 through Nov. 2 in Mexico and Latin America in remembrance of those who have died.

A son of a Long Island man who vanished in 1961, leaving his wife and children alone to grapple with the mystery of his disappearance for decades, says he feels relieved by the discovery of bones in the same home this Halloween.

"We felt abandoned as kids but he was here the whole time," Steven Carroll, who was just 5 when his father George disappeared, told News 4 Thursday. 

Steven Carroll and his brother Michael stumbled upon a skeleton in their basement Wednesday; bones they believe belong to their long missing father. 

Steven Carroll says his mother told him and his siblings very little about what had happened until just before her death in 1998. The family never filed any missing persons report and there is "no record" of police involvements in his disappearance, Suffolk County police say.

He and his siblings all have different theories about their father's disappearance, Carroll said, though he declined to share some of the differences in speculation.

Though they never knew what happened to their father, police say that for reasons that remain unclear the family had always thought he might be buried in the home he lived in on Olive Street in Lake Grove. That home is now owned by Michael Carroll, Steven's brother. And it was that bizarre hunch that prompted the next generation -- George Carroll's grandsons -- to start digging in the basement. It was an excavation project that tooks months -- and they hit the remains, which sat below concrete, on the spookiest day of the year.

Police say a DNA test will need to be performed to confirm the body in the basement is George Carroll, but they suspect foul play in the death of whoever was found in that cellar after so many years.

The family believes it is George Carroll for sure. If that turns out to be the case, his sons want to give their father, a Korean War veteran, a proper burial at Calverton National Cemetery, Steven Carroll said.  

Oh, Halloween.

You're no longer a single day of the year, but a full-on month of spooky celebrations. 

And when we say "month" we actually mean that you start around Labor Day, or just before, when jumbo bags of candy corns pop up on the store shelves and the earliest theme park extravaganzas begin to eerie-up our weekend evenings.

Which all leads to this: Nowadays, for many fans of the macabre, the night of Halloween can come too quickly. Or, at the very least, a Halloween maven can find herself on November 1, feeling as though she let a number of phantom-fun events pass her by.

But this is Southern California, one of Halloween's main addresses thanks, in large part, to our fantasy-making industries, which means that a few frightful happenings have stretched their bony fingers into the month that follows October.

So, it is November, yes, but where can you find a few jumps, scares, and eeks? Look to...

Halloween Horror Nights, at Universal Studios Hollywood, which will continue to amaze and maze-up the lives of scare-seeking adventurers through Sunday, Nov. 4. Been to the "Stranger Things" experience yet? Or dared to board the Terror Tram? This is your final chance for 2018, so get brave, get bold, and prepare to face Michael Myers, and a host of other pop culture baddies.

CREEP: A W A K E, at ROW DTLA, takes the concept of "Adventurous Avant Garde Theatre" and pushes it forward, inviting guests to become part of the skin-tingling tale. Ponder this: "What if your nightmares kept repeating, night after night?" Find out, through Nov. 4, 2018, as this theatrical, you're-involved event keeps the knees-quaking vibe high, even days past Halloween. 

Delusion's "The Blue Blade": This sold-out, so-sold-out, completely-totally-ish-sold-out event was so sold-out-y that the team behind it decided to add a bunch of new dates, beginning in February 2019. Those'll run through to late June, at a location that is shared once you buy a ticket. What will you experience? A thrilling and mysterious knot to detangle, where, yes, you're essential to the de-tangling. It's been one of the sensations of the SoCal spooky season; see why.

Dark Harbor: Dare you venture to one of the best-known haunted places in the Golden State for a series of shadow-filled mazes, talented sliders, and a host of characters that look as if they were at sea just a bit too long? Then set sail for the Queen Mary, in Long Beach, before this annual mazes-and-more extravaganza pulls up the planks on Friday, Nov. 2.

Wicked Lit: The Chimes and the Corpse: If you've heard about the drama vignettes presented at a real mausoleum, then you're not alone, for this production keeps building the buzz, year after year. Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena is the spot, and the two presentations, "The Chimes: A Goblin Story" and "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse" will both wrap on Saturday, Nov. 10.

Universal Studios and NBC-owned TV stations operate under the same parent company NBCUniversal.

An HIV-positive man accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl was arrested Wednesday in Davie, Florida, police said.

William Charles Bell, 55, was charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child between 12 and 16 years old, one count of using or allowing a child to engage in sex and one count of causing or allowing the use of computer pornography by a minor, jail records showed.

Police said Bell had unprotected sex with the underage girl, and that there could be more victims.

"This animal victimized a 14-year-old girl that he was having sex with over the course of a few months," Davie Police Sgt. Mark Leone told reporters Thursday morning.

An arrest report said the sexual encounters took place at Bell's trailer in Davie between August and October 2018.

The report said Bell admitted to having sex with the girl on several occasions and to photographing the victim in the nude.

Leone said that when Bell was arrested officers found multiple images of child pornography on his phone, including some showing him sexually battering the young girl.

The girl was being tested to see whether she had contracted HIV, Leone said.

Bell was being held on $350,000 bond Thursday, jail records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.

Anyone with information is asked to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.

Furry slap bracelets sold exclusively at Target stores were recalled due to a laceration hazard following reports of injuries, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

About 22,500 bracelets were recalled Wednesday over concerns that the bracelet’s metal wristband could "pierce the fabric around it, exposing sharp edges and posing a laceration hazard to young children." Five injuries of minor cuts to hands or wrists have been reported.

The bracelet, distributed by Fantasia Accessories, sold for about $5 each at Target stores nationwide and Target’s website.

The bracelets are geared toward children and feature furry critter, such as a panda, unicorn and heart, on a slap bracelet design.

The CPSC is asking consumers to “immediately stop” using the bracelets, take them away from young children and contact Fantasia Accessories via 800-624-4826 to receive a free replacement product.

For more information on this recall, click here.

The man arrested after a series of burglaries in a rural part of Calabasas, not far from Malibu Creek State Park, failed to appear for a violation hearing in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Thursday morning.

At an afternoon hearing Anthony Rauda then began yelling and banging on a holding cell window after the judge refused to remove the public defender’s office as Rauda’s attorney of record.

"Excuse me, your honor, I'd like to speak," Rauda, 42, said.

When the judge refused to hear the statement and advised Rauda to, "speak through his attorney," Rauda began yelling.  "I'm not going to cooperate with the public defender's office!" he said, before swearing at the officials in the courtroom.

The hearing was closed as Rauda began banging on the holding cell window, according to the NBC4 photographer who attended the hearing.

Thursday's hearing had been scheduled to address Rauda's alleged violation of the terms of his post release conviction supervision as a result of Rauda's arrest last month and officials were expected to request he be held in jail with no bail for 180 additional days.

Rauda is accused of failing to report to the PRCS office and of being a felon in possession of a gun and ammunition, according to court records. The violation hearing has now been rescheduled for later this month. Rauda is being held in jail without bail and no new criminal charges have been filed, according to the LA County District Attorney’s Office.

Rauda was caught by LA County Sheriff's Major Crimes Bureau detectives in a wilderness area north of the park Oct. 10 after a series of unusual early-morning break-ins, during which an armed, masked burglar stole food from a number of buildings in the area. Major Crimes and Sheriff's Homicide Bureau detectives are also investigating whether Rauda could be responsible for a series of seemingly-random shootings in the same area over the last two years, including the killing of a camper in June.

Tristan Beaudette was shot to death at the park while he slept next to his 2- and 4-year-old daughters in a closed tent. Rauda was armed with a long gun or rifle when he was arrested, the officials said. The armed, masked man on the security video became the focus of an intensive wilderness manhunt after an early-morning burglary September 30 at a construction office near the intersection of Las Virgenes and Mulholland Highway.

Security cameras captured video of a masked man with a rifle slung over his left shoulder prying open a window and climbing inside. NBC News obtained still images from that video that showed the burglar was wearing a battery-powered headlamp and tactical-style clothing. Investigators also told NBC4 food was stolen but valuables including cash were left behind.

The break-in was similar to several other food-thefts in the same area, authorities said, leading detectives to consider whether the burglar was hiding out somewhere in the brush-covered hills of Malibu.

The gun seen on the security video also raised questions about whether the burglar could be responsible for a some of the seemingly random shootings reported in the same area over the last year, including the killing of Beaudette, who was shot while he camped with his 2- and 4-year-old daughters at Malibu Creek State Park in June.

More than one type of gun was used in the series of shootings, the sources said, so it was not immediately clear how many - if any - incidents might be linked to the gun seen in the security video.

Meet Missy, the pet of the week for Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018.

Sporting a mixture of light and dark-brown hair, Missy is a 3 year old Maine Coon mix. Her owner had to give her up due to her landlord.

Missy is a sweet cat that does not need much maintenance. She is welcoming toward other cats and people and purrs when you pet her. Missy is an easy-going cat, and a great addition to any home.

ID: A1818220

West Valley Center
20655 Plummer Street
Chatsworth, CA 91311
(818) 756-9325 (center)

Vatche Meguerdichian was at the height of his singing career when he suddenly dropped out of the scene. The legendary Armenian singer now runs a restaurant in Sherman Oaks, California.

A chase ended with an arrest in Rowland Heights on Thursday.

The chase ended just before 3 p.m. on the 60 Freeway in Rowland Heights.

An Orange County family whose son eventually died after suffering sudden cardiac arrest is sharing their story, hoping to protect other families from the pain they've suffered.

The Hogates never expected their healthy son Kevin would suffer a catastrophic health event. Only after it happened did they realize they couldn't access his medical information.

"He was just an amazing kid, always so kind and helpful," Kate Hogate said of her late son.

During Kevin's sophomore year at college, the unthinkable happened. The 20-year-old suffered sudden cardiac arrest playing video games in his dorm room.

"To see him in a paralytic state, with a respirator and more than 20 different IVs hanging from multiple racks going into him … it was just unimaginable," father Scott Hogate said.

Kevin's parents soon learned in that critical moment they did not have access to their own son's medical record.

"I felt like nobody was really forthcoming to say, 'here's what we know, here's what we can explain to you of what we know has happened," Kate Hogate said.

That's because federal health care privacy laws known as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) prevent doctors from sharing information once children become legal adults at age 18.

Attorney Todd Litman recommends his clients have their children sign three documents beginning with a health care directive and a HIPAA privacy waiver.

A durable power of attorney is also recommended, which allows parents to sign legal documents in case of an emergency.

It's something Kate Hogate meant to do from the time Kevin started college.

"In my head I weighed all these factors, thinking the risk was so low that I wouldn't need it, and yet here I am saying to myself, 'I Wish I had done this, because you just don't know."

The 18-year-old former Eagle Scout who didn't use drugs or party suffered repeated cardiac arrest in the hospital and eventually died.

While the Hogates are grateful for the doctors and nurses who tried to save their son, they desperately needed more forthcoming conversations.

"It always felt like it was guarded in that they felt they had to tiptoe around what they could or could not say," Kate Hogate said.

She added that if they had the documentation in place it would have been easier.

They're sharing their story in the hopes of "helping people not go through what we went through," she said.

"The sting never goes away," Scott Hogate added.

Los Angeles County's typhus epidemic continues to worsen, with 107 people now infected, while some are complaining the city is too slow to take action, including removing heaps of uncollected garbage that are breeding grounds for the disease.

"Nobody cares," says Fred Yasharpour, who owns Sana Fabric store in the section of downtown LA known as the Typhus Zone, where 12 people have been infected.

A week ago Yasharpour called and emailed the city to pick up "a mountain of trash" on a sidewalk on Crocker Street, but it's still there.

"They don't have enough resources," he told NBC4.

Just a month ago, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti told the I-Team's Joel Grover "it's unacceptable" that the city hasn't responded to calls to clean up mounds of rat-infested trash "and as mayor I'm going to make sure that is changed."

Health experts say typhus is spread to humans from fleas, which harbor on rats that feed off trash piles. The city has accelerated efforts to power wash rat infested streets and remove trash from homeless encampments that attract rats.

But LA has been slower to fulfill a promise to fumigate for fleas and rats on the 23 blocks of the Typhus Zone. When the I-Team pressed the Department of Public Works for an update, they admitted that only 6 out of 23 blocks have been treated.

"They (the city of LA) have great ideas about the typhus outbreak, but nothing's getting done," says businessman Yasharpour.

When do the "eeks" and "boos" of Halloween transform into the jingle-jingles and "ho, ho, hos" of the Christmas season?

There are several signs around Southern California, signs that include our mega mall tree-lightings, the wintry offerings at various theme parks, and when Santa Claus rides down Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood Christmas Parade, a Thanksgiving Sunday tradition.

But before all that, tickets go on sale to one of the sweetest of the Southland's celebratory to-dos: It's the Irvine Park Railroad Christmas Train we speak of, of course, the popular seasonal must-do for families, tots, couples, and anyone who loves a cute, choo-choo-ful expression of the yuletide.

And now that it is November, you can bet that tickets are chugga-chugga-ing in this direction. That's right: The on-sale date for the Irvine Park Railroad Christmas Train is Thursday, Nov. 1.

The 2018 dates are Nov. 30 through Dec. 23, and, yes, Santa Claus will be putting in some happy appearances at the Orange-based attraction.

Activities like cookie decorating, ice fishing, and getting behind the wheel of a Rudolph Racer are also part of the day-out, kid-pleasing event. Activities do take separate tickets, so peruse all before you go.

And nab that main ticket, of course, because those can sell out on choice dates, faster than elves can fill Santa's sleigh with toys.

A ticket is $15, while tots ages 24 months and under will ride gratis. As for Santa photos? You can read up on those right here.

Ho, and ho, and ho: November is here, as are the chances to choo-choose one of the most adorable family traditions around for a holiday outing.

A man accused of driving while under the influence of nitrous oxide and causing a crash that killed an 11-year-old girl standing at a Boyle Heights taco stand last November was arraigned Thursday on manslaughter and DUI charges.

Joe Louis Perez, 22, of Boyle Heights, was charged last month with one felony count each of gross vehicle manslaughter while intoxicated and driving under the influence of a drug causing injury, along with allegations of causing great bodily injury.

He is accused of being under the influence of nitrous oxide, commonly known as "laughing gas," around 7 p.m. Nov. 10, 2017, while driving on Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights. According to prosecutors, he crashed his car into a parked vehicle in the 900 block of South Marietta Street, forcing the parked vehicle onto a curb, where it struck a group of people gathered at the taco stand.

The crash killed 11-year-old Elektra Yepez, and also injured her mother and two aunts.

Perez was arrested at the scene following the crash, but he was not immediately charged in the case and was released from custody.

He faces up to 13 years and eight months in prison if convicted, according to the District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors are recommending his bail be set at $230,000.

Nicole Kidman says she had never heard of gay conversion therapy before reading the script for "Boy Erased."

"Is this real? I didn't think it existed so that was a big learning curve for me." Kidman said.

"Boy Erased" is based on the true story of Garrard Conley and his memoir titled "Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith and Family." When he was a teen, Conley's deeply religious parents sent him to a gay conversion therapy camp to help him get rid of his homosexual feelings.

Joel Edgerton ("Loving") penned the screenplay and directed the film. The story follows the fictional Jaren Eamons played by Lucas Hedges who must overcome the fallout of being outed to his parents. Kidman plays his mother Nancy in the film and struggles with choosing her faith over her son's well-being.

Both Edgerton and Kidman says it was an active choice not to make religion, the parents or the conversion therapy counselors the villain in this movie. They say they wanted to portray the very real, very human response that can happen in these situations.

"It's not fueled by hatred, sending their children to those places. It's more complicated than that." Edgerton said.

Both the filmmakers and the Conley's say they hope this film starts a conversation about gay conversion therapy, where they say more than 77,000 people are being held in these types of programs around the U.S.

Garrard Conley wanted to make it clear that his goal in writing his memoir and doing this film was not to vilify religion. "Whatever target I had to dismantle was not religion, or my parents or the counselors themselves. It was the bigotry that allowed this kind of thinking to happen."

"Boy Erased" opens nationwide on November 2nd. It stars Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Joel Edgerton.

Following the discovery of a mother's body in a duffel bag in an Orange County dumpster, a man believed to be her boyfriend was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport as he attempted to board a plane out of the country, police said Thursday.

The lifeless body of a 38-year-old Tyanie Ly, a mother of three from Santa Ana, was found in luggage in a dumpster early Tuesday morning.

The Anaheim Police Department responded to a call at 2:15 a.m. from a person who found her body in a duffel bag while searching for recyclables in a dumpster behind the Villa Del Amo apartments on the 2000 block of south Balboa street.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Amer Alhasan was arrested at LAX while attempting to board a flight heading to Germany, said Chief of Police Jorge Cisneros. 

Alhasan is a 28-year-old La Habra resident with familial ties to Jordan. 

Ly and Alhasan were in a dating relationship, Cisneros said. 

"We're asking for anybody else who may have been in a dating relationship with him in the past to call us," Public Information Officer Daron Wyatt said. "There are likely prior events of domestic violence or sexual assault."

The family of the victim, whose youngest child is under 12 years old, said they were devastated. The children were with her family following the discovery of her body.

Wyatt said Alhasan is believed to have been accused of sexual assault in the country of Jordan, and also believed to have been arrested of a crime in California, for which he was never charged.

His bail was set at $5 million. Wyatt said police are seeking to revoke the option of bail because authorities consider him a flight risk. 

Police expect first-degree murder charges to be filed on Friday, Wyatt said.

Maybe Clayton Kershaw brought them bad luck. 

The Dodgers star was on-hand for the first MLS Playoff game in Los Angeles Football Club history, but the squad lost on an own-goal by Walker Zimmerman, as Real Salt Lake defeated LAFC, 3-2, on Thursday night at Banc of California Stadium. 

The loss eliminated LAFC from the MLS Cup Playoffs in their inaugural season, as they expansion club fought til the better end, but couldn't find the equalizer against the veteran-laden squad from Utah.

"We built something special," said manager Bob Bradley of the season as a whole. "This season we had enough moments of enough really good football that the vision of what we want to be can be achieved."

LAFC put pressure on their opponents for most of the first half until Damir Kreilach put RSL on the board after a brilliant counter attack.

Right back, Brooks Lennon ran to the corner where he stopped, pivoted on the touch line, and sent a cross into the box to Kreilach who took the pass off his chest and buried it into the bottom left corner of the net for the 1-0 lead.

"It was a cross literally from the touch line. You can't give up goals like that," said Bradley of RSL's first goal. "At that point, I still felt our urgency and intensity and composure to keep playing was still there."

Unless you're the Las Vegas Golden Knights, it's rare for an expansion team in any sport to reach the postseason, let alone host a playoff match.

So LAFC found themselves in uncharted territory, not only playing in a playoff match in their inaugural season, but trailing by a goal against a plucky RSL squad.

LAFC leveled the score at 1-1 when Carlos Vela took a free kick from the right wing and blasted into the box, where center back Danilo Silva got his head on the ball just in front of the six-yard box for the equalizer. 

"Danilo didn't do well on the header, but he makes up for it with the goal there," added Bradley. "At that point we kept giving ourselves a chance to win."

Both teams went into halftime with 45 minutes of playoff action under their belts, but it was LAFC that seized the energy from the crowd and carried over their momentum into the second half, with the early go-ahead goal on a golazo by Christian Ramirez. 

Midfielder Lee Nguyen sent a through ball to Ramirez who sent an absolute stunner from outside the box into the top corner of the net to give LAFC their first lead at 2-1. 

"I was trying to make runs and create space for guys," said the So-Cal native Ramirez of his goal. "It took an own-goal and a wonder goal to take us out. That's how cruel this game is."

As RSL trailed, they were reminded of how they stumbled into the postseason to begin with. After a 3-0 loss to the Portland Timbers in the final game of the season, RSL looked dead in the water until the LA Galaxy gave them a lifeline, losing at home to the Houston Dynamo in the season finale. 

"I didn't see LA losing that game," RSL head coach Mike Petke said. "I thought it was a one in a million chance. With the makeup of our team, we deserved to be in the playoffs and tonight I guess we proved it."

So with the full knowledge that they were playing with house money, RSL didn't shy away from the moment, rallying behind Kreilach one more time as he answered three minutes later with the equalizer. 

Kreilach did his best impression of Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid as he "Crane Kicked" the goal from beyond the box for an amazing volley that tied the game at 2-2

"When this moment was the best option to do this, and luckily the ball was in the goal," said the Croatian striker. "Tonight was a great performance."

RSL took the lead on an own-goal by LAFC defender Walker Zimmerman. Forward Jefferson Savarino sent a shot on net from the right corner of the box that deflected off the face of Zimmerman and into the net for the heartbreaking difference maker. 

"It went off my face and into our goal," said Zimmerman. "I had no idea it was coming. I didn't really see much of it, and obviously it bounced the wrong way."

Despite the loss, the atmosphere inside Banc of California stadium was electric as supporters cheered non-step for their new team.

"The atmosphere in here every night is awesome," said Bradley of the stadium they call "The Banc." "They stand and sing from the beginning until the end. We have the best situation in the league."

The game was marred by some of those supporters however as fans threw cups of ice and beer onto the field at RSL players including goalkeeper Nick Rimando. 

Earlier in the season, the MLS and LAFC implored fans to stop the "puto" chant directed at the opposing keeper. Fans obliged throughout the season, but the defamatory chant returned for the playoff match.

"There was a really good discussion after the chant happened and that got taken care of immediately," said Bradley. "Tonight, some of that we don't need. Moving forward they know that we love them, we'll play for them, we will give our hearts to them, they will give our hearts to us, and we'll have to make sure it doesn't cross the line."

Real Salt Lake last won the MLS Cup in 2009, and Thursday marked their first playoff win since 2013. 

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