In what is becoming a weekly feature of Crime Scene, I am pleased to present this week’s dispatch from ace reporter Tania Chatila.

Tania: I received this e-mail from a reader commenting on the man who died on the side of the 210 Freeway with a gunshot wound Tuesday night. Apparently, this reader drove by the scene and saw everything.

 

“I drove by that 48 year old guy..cant think of his name. It was really disturbing because you see something that looks like a pile of white something…then you see an ARM hanging out the side. If they pulled him outta the car then why didnt they cover his whole body up? I dont need to be driving around seeing dead bodies with partially covered bodies. I know its not your fault but I needed to vent.”

Tania: This brings up a good question about how cops in the Valley work. In most places, entire bodies are immediately covered with a white sheet. But around here, things are different. In Baldwin Park, a 19-year-old teen was shot to death Monday night in a driveway on a residential street. For 20 minutes, BP cops stood around their police cars chatting away while the dead body lay uncovered in the middle of the street in plain view. A nearby neighbor filmed the whole thing from his window. Do we really need to see that?