Body left on road for 4 hours

Earlier today outside my building, one of our contracted employees was struck and killed by a truck while attempting to cross the road.

It was obvious that she had just gotten off the bus and attempted to cross the street in the middle of the block and not at the crosswalk. (Nothing new or unusual, people do it every day)

The driver of the truck remained at the scene.
Seems like an open and shut case.
Take some pictures and some measurements, ensure the driver wasn't under the influence of drugs or alcohol or otherwise impaired. Collect some statements, clean up the mess and get back to work.

My question is why was the body left on the street for 4 hours?

She wasn't strewn about the area or anything, all of her was still together in one spot. Also this is a pretty busy street, it feeds an entrance to a major highway.

Are there any law enforcement officers or medical examiner employees here who pick up bodies that can shed some light on this?

It just seems like an unreasonably long time to keep a street blocked by a body in a city in the middle of the day. 10am - 2pm.

reply to post by watchitburn


rather than solicit the opinion of ATS - why not make a formal request to a relevant authority ?

reply to post by ignorant_ape


Because I am more inclined to trust a well written response on ATS than one from a "relevant authority".

I'm lost. So, the officers kept area closed off for 4 hours to do an investigation, or no officers were at the scene for at least 4 hrs?

reply to post by watchitburn


really ???

you value speculation from anonymous self appointed " experts " with no access to the facts of the case over proper authorities ?

reply to post by Diabolical

Police responded fairly quickly (within 5 minutes) and were on scene the entire time. Investigating I suppose.

reply to post by ignorant_ape


By well written response, I meant maybe someone employed in one of the professions I solicited in the OP. Preferably with a link to a similar situation or news article with a logical reasoning for the time a body might be left.

A logical sequence of events the police are required to perform in such a situation. If I had something like that, I could apply common sense and what I know of this specific incident to come up with an acceptable explanation.

Instead I have you here wasting my time.

Perhaps I should have been more specific.

reply to post by watchitburn

God love her and her family and may she be with family now, the police may have thought ah what the heck this lady is dead anyway so lets use it to make a point these people will not soon forget and make sure a lot of them know what has happened, also there may have been something other odd factor that you and the public are not aware of in which case a full investigation and scene forensic analysis may have been undertaken, also it could have been a rooky coroner.

To show there buddies?

reply to post by watchitburn


Wow, that is horrible! Did you know this person? Those are good questions btw, sorry I do not have a answer for that. You WOULD THINK that they would be removed as soon as it could be done. If that was a family member of mine, I would be totally hysterical and raise some hell!!

reply to post by Starwise


I knew her in passing, not personally.

They did cover her with a blanket quickly, so at least they did that.

reply to post by watchitburn


I thought you were pretty specific already , to be honest. Seems you asked the question correctly so.. not sure..

I wish I had an answer, the only times I've seen an area blocked off for such a long time was when a lady decided a train was a good way to end her life. And she became part of the neighbourhood. almost 5 hours with an entire station closed, no public access, on a 40c day. It was horrible, from what I could tell peices of her were everywhere.

And when they finally let the public back into the station, the humidity carried the stench of her blood with it. Thick and suffocating, as you tried to get on the station. I will never forget that.

But for what you describe, there sounds like more to the situation? Hopefully a more knowledgeable person will answer.

Either way, sorry to hear you had to witness this..

If they were on the scene in 5 minutes, then they were probably waiting on the forensics team, and waiting for the coroner to get there. They can't remove the body until the forensics team get there and coroner gets there. What do you expect them to do? Put her in the back of the cruiser?

reply to post by watchitburn


A cop i know from a large east coast city was telling me how pissed he was when this happened on his shift. Except it was a shooting in a poor neighborhood in the middle of basketball courts.

They left the kid out the while they investigated when they usually take the body away. It's a poor neighborhood and people were gathering getting angrier and angrier. 1. Dangerous situation and 2. Very disrespectful. No one needs to see that stuff.

If they remove body, they are going to taint all the evidence. They have to wait for the forensics team and the coroner to get there. That's probably why it took so long.

If this was on the freeway, it would have been cleared up asap. But usually the authorities will take as long as possible milling around if it's not something completely blocking traffic.

They were checking to see if she turned into a zombie??

Who knows, they probably have things to fill out before they can move the body.

Traffic homicide investigations (THI) take hours to perform. Generally the body doesn't need to be there the entire time during the investigation. However, depending on the situation it may need to be kept on scene a little longer then normal.

The usual reason for the body being left on scene for such a long time is because after being pronounced deceased by the fire department/paramedics the police have to contact the medical examiner to inform them of the situation. This takes time. Then the ME decides if they will respond to the scene or not. Generally speaking for a traffic accident they don't respond. IF they do respond that adds another hour on to the time before the body is picked up.

Then the police have to contact the doctor seen by the victim to ask if they will sign the death certificate. If no doctor is available the ME will sign it. They don't always like doing that, so sometimes it takes a while for them to agree. Phone tag happens in this stage.

Lastly, the police have to research to see if the victim had any kind of funeral plan in place. Like for example arrangements with a funeral home for pick up and burial. This takes time. If they don't have anything we use the on call funeral home. They then have to respond to pick up the body. Sometimes this takes hours.

I recall a case where I had a male deceased from natural causes in his car port. The fire department arrived, pronounced him dead and left the scene. They didn't even leave something to cover his body. Due to his family being there I used my rain coat to cover him up. It broke my heart seeing his young daughter staring at his body through the window of the house. After the FD left, I contacted the funeral home. It took two hours for them to respond!

So generally speaking, a death investigation of any kind usually takes a police officer 3-6 hours to complete. Sometimes the body is there for a while, sometimes it is not. Obviously a traffic accident would usually require a little longer of an investigation opposed to someone who died of natural causes.

Hope that helps a little.

reply to post by watchitburn


omg that is awful.

Why would they leave it there for so long?

speechless.

reply to post by watchitburn


Where I am located, this would be normal because the medical examiner lives 3 hours away and usually is air lifted onto the scene, however sometimes they cannot respond right away because of other situations. The medical examiner can takes hours to arrive on scene. The medical examiner could have been busy?

hmmmm , you have now received the correct answer - do you believe it ?

in short - bodies cannot - unless in exceptional circumstances be moved by any one

and shortages of rescources / manpower can mean delays

happy now ?