Worker Killed as Part of Old Store Being Demolished in Pasadena Falls In on Him

A 28-year-old Huntington Park man was killed Friday when part of the second-floor parking structure of the old Broadway department store in Pasadena collapsed and buried him under tons of concrete, a police spokesman said.

The victim was identified as Alejandro Cervantes.

Pasadena Police Lt. Lynn Froistad said the old store building, fronting on Colorado Boulevard, is being demolished. The parking structure is at the rear of the building. Froistad said a crane swinging a steel wrecking ball was knocking down a section of the parking structure at about 9:30 a.m. when it “started collapsing around the edges.”

Cervantes was working with a skip loader on the ground floor when the accident occurred. An unidentified co-worker was able to leap clear, Froistad said, but Cervantes was buried under the rubble. It took more than two hours to recover the body, Froistad added.

William Fenning, president of Los Angeles-based Cleveland Wrecking Co., told the Associated Press that Cervantes had been sent to the site to repair some broken-down equipment.

“Had it not been raining, this death wouldn’t have happened,” Fenning said. “He had repaired the bobcat loader outside, but it started raining, so he pulled it inside the building to put oil in. He was only a few feet inside the building when it collapsed and killed him.”