Early Monday morning, a report written by Deputy Tony Moore distributed to news agencies said a group of unidentified assailants attacked a man (at Guido’s restaurant) as he went to take out the trash and savagely beat him to death.
A lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Thursday that investigators did not examine Rodas’ body before the sheriff’s department issued an initial press release claiming Rodas had been beaten to death.
Reported in the same issue of The Malibu Times, is the follow-up to LA County Sheriffs’ handling of the Richardson case, in which they released a young attractive woman into countryside bordering the 101 Freeway and the Santa Monica Mountains in the middle of the night, with no means to get home, no phone and no money.
This entirely irresponsible behavior by L.A. County agencies, in which they erroneously report a “savage beating” outside a popular local restaurant, without even an examination of the recovered body, deserves a reprimand by the Malibu City government.
The likely fall-off in business to the restaurant because of hysteria caused by an official write-up is egregious and callous. The fact that it was a deputy who apparently had no idea what had happened to the man, yet issues his gory surmise to the press, indicating possible gangs roaming the creekbed, should have the man put off-duty for a good long time.
I would like to hear from the city on this.
Beate Nilsen