Homeless often sleep in garbage bins to keep warm at night
A dead body was found Wednesday by city workers who were unloading a truck full of recycling material.
Santa Monica police officers were called to the Santa Monica Recycling Center at 25th Street and Michigan Avenue at 11:24 a.m.
Officers found no pulse on the victim’s arm, which was the only part of the body that was exposed.
“Workers were unloading a truck full of recycling material when one of the employees saw what appeared to be a body part,” said police department spokesman Lt. Frank Fabrega. “Upon taking a closer look, employees saw what they believed to be a dead body.”
Besides being male, police officers could not verify the race or the approximate age of the victim.
“It’s hard to tell the race of a dead body,” Fabrega said. “(Bodies) tend to turn different colors when they die which makes it tough to tell.”
Police would not speculate if the dead man was homeless. Fabrega said investigators removed personal items from the dead man’s pockets, adding he was wearing slacks and a sweater.
“I can’t remember the last time we had something like this,” Fabrega said.
The dead man, who had a medium build, displayed no visible signs of trauma, Fabrega said.
Los Angeles County coroners and the Los Angeles County Criminal Investigation unit declined to comment.
A full coroner’s report determining the cause of death will not be ready for four to six weeks, officials said.
The body did not appear to have been dead very long because investigators and police officers were not wearing masks to cover their mouths and noses.
Workers at the recycling center said the truck had just returned from emptying recycling bins, the majority of which were along Colorado Boulevard. They said often times homeless people crawl into the containers at night to keep warm while they sleep — especially in the coastal zone.
When trucks pick up recycling dump-sters in the morning, workers hit the containers to wake up any people that may be inside.
“When we pull up at 6 a.m. we rattle the cage and they usually just jump out,” said Jose Cadena, a recycling center employee. “This guy probably got drunk, fell asleep and didn’t crawl out in the morning.”
But Cadena said he believes the man must have been dead before the dumpster was emptied.
“To be honest, if he was alive when we picked up the bin he would have jumped out,” he said. “Or we would have heard him yelling or moving around.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 21, 2002. Read the original PDF.