Parking-Ticket Writer Overlooks Body of Evidence

A Los Angeles County parking control officer who ticketed a Cadillac parked illegally on Piru Street in Willowbrook Friday morning got no excuses from the driver sitting stiffly behind his steering wheel.

The motorist had been caught fair and square, illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day. The parking officer left the ticket and drove off.

But there was a reason for the driver’s silence. He was dead, shot in the head perhaps as many as 13 hours before his car was ticketed, county sheriff’s homicide investigators said Friday.

In a bureaucratic reflex that might well serve as a textbook example of public servants’ indifference to the public they serve, authorities said Friday that the civilian parking officer apparently ticketed the dead motorist, left the $30 citation on the man’s dashboard and drove off without contacting authorities.

“He was noticeably dead,” said county paramedic Paul Hatherly, one of the first authorities on the scene. “The driver’s window was three-quarters down. He had severe rigor mortis. He was discolored. . . . But whoever put the ticket there was clueless.”

Los Angeles County firefighters said sheriff’s deputies went to Piru Street about 10:35 a.m. Friday after being called by a resident who noticed the body in the brown Eldorado. Paramedics and firefighters who arrived soon after the deputies said they found the driver sitting up, slumped slightly forward with blood on his face. And they found the ticket--dated Friday, 9:46 a.m.--on the dashboard.

Since paramedics said it was a safe bet that the driver expired sometime Thursday night, authorities on the scene Friday morning had a hard time trying to fathom how the parking officer could possibly have missed the man’s obvious condition.

“He had to reach in the window right past the body,” Firefighter Dennis Walsh said. “He put the ticket on the inside of the dash and drove off, and here this guy has been dead in the driver’s seat for 10 or 12 hours. . . . At 10 or 12 hours, a body is stiff as a board.”

Sheriff’s homicide investigators said the driver had been shot at least once in the head, possibly as early as 9 p.m. Thursday. Neighbors told detectives that they had heard the sound of gunfire at about that time.

“No one called the Lynwood station until 10:19 (Friday) morning,” said Deputy George Ducoulombier.

Sgt. Sam Silva, supervisor of parking control in Willowbrook, declined to discuss the incident on Piru Street. He said that in general, though, the civilian parking officers cover a wide area and are continually busy--giving rise to the possibility that the parking officer on Piru Street may have been working so hurriedly that he did not notice the body.

“These people stay very active throughout the day,” Silva said.

Citing their investigation, deputies declined to identify the shooting victim or comment on the firefighters’ claim that the ticket had been placed on the car’s dashboard. Sheriff’s officials would only confirm that the dead man had been ticketed before they had discovered him.

“The circumstances as to why the body was not seen are being investigated,” Deputy Benita Hinojos said.

The identity of the parking control officer who ticketed the Cadillac was not released pending the outcome of the investigation. A parking officer was spotted standing with deputies Friday afternoon, but authorities would not let a reporter question the man, nor would they confirm if he was the officer who ticketed the dead man.

Parking enforcement in Willowbrook is handled by non-sworn Sheriff’s Department employees who receive a general orientation class but no law enforcement training. Deputies said that during the orientation class, parking officers are instructed to contact authorities if they come across a crime or anyone in need of aid.

But there are no requirements that parking officers actually look into the cars they ticket. Nor, said sheriff’s spokesman Rich Erickson, is there a statute requiring the reporting of a dead body.

“Remember, you are not talking about deputies. These are civilians,” Ducoulombier said.