Police SUV Kills Sunbather in Oxnard

Two Oxnard police officers who were patrolling the beach in an SUV ran over and killed a sunbather Monday, authorities said.

The woman was identified late Monday as Cindy Conolly, 49, of Sioux City, Iowa. Mike Feiler, senior deputy medical examiner for the Ventura County coroner, said she was staying at the nearby Embassy Suites Mandalay Beach Resort with her fiance, who was at the hotel while she was sunbathing.

The officers did not immediately realize that they had run over the woman and continued driving, Police Cmdr. Tom Chronister said in a statement.

A witness called the Oxnard Fire Department to report that the woman was bleeding on the beach just south of the Embassy Suites resort. The two police officers were among those who responded to the woman bleeding, according to Chronister’s statement.

The officers, who were not identified, had stopped on a small sand berm to observe a swimmer they thought was in distress. When they saw that the swimmer was fine, they drove over the berm and apparently struck the woman, who was lying about a foot from the berm’s downward slope, authorities said. The tires ran over her head, Feiler said.

“Given the soft nature of the sand and the size of the vehicle, it would have been easy for them to not sense that they had ran over something,” Feiler said, adding that the officers probably couldn’t see the woman.

An autopsy was scheduled for today. The officers have been placed on paid leave while the Oxnard police traffic unit and the Ventura County district attorney’s office investigate.