Parents Doubt Son Hanged Himself in Jail

The parents of a 27-year-old man who died in a Torrance Police Department jail cell last week said they believe that officers beat their son, despite a coroner’s ruling that the young man killed himself and was not physically abused.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office concluded this week that Timothy McCauley’s death last Thursday was a suicide by hanging. Deputy Medical Examiner Irwin L. Golden ruled that other injuries suffered by McCauley--including a sprained shoulder and abrasions--were probably caused by a traffic accident and scrambling over a fence in an attempt to escape police the night before.

The coroner’s findings are consistent with the police version of what happened Aug. 10-11.

But Donald and Pamela McCauley, the dead man’s divorced parents, said they plan to continue their investigation into the death. A private medical examiner hired by the family will conduct a second autopsy this week, Donald McCauley said.

“The major question I’m trying to get straight,” he said, “is did he, in fact, take his own life or was he murdered?”

In Good Spirits

Pamela McCauley said her son appeared to be in good spirits when he returned home from his construction job the evening of Aug. 10. McCauley, who shared the Torrance home with his mother, showered and left for a date about 7 p.m.

McCauley, who had at least two convictions for assault, including one for assault on a police officer, was on probation for driving under the influence of alcohol when he was arrested for speeding, his mother said. Under the probation, he was permitted to drive only to and from work.

McCauley was stopped for speeding about 7:30 p.m. by a motorcycle officer using a radar gun on Skypark Drive in Torrance, police said.

They gave the following account:

McCauley admitted to Officer William Dorman that he was driving illegally with a restricted license, then sped off in his white pickup truck.

When Dorman gave chase, McCauley suddenly made a U-turn and drove his truck at the officer, who swerved his motorcycle and narrowly avoided a collision. Dorman retreated to the parking lot of Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center, but McCauley made several more runs at the policeman before speeding across Lomita Boulevard.

He tried to make a high-speed turn onto Fujita Street, but the truck jumped a curb and crashed into an electrical transformer. McCauley ran from the truck, jumping two fences before hiding amid cardboard boxes at an industrial complex.

Police found McCauley a few minutes later.

Pamela McCauley said she received a telephone call at 5:45 the next morning from her son, who admitted that he had tried to escape after being pulled over by police.

“His voice was very weak, and he obviously was in a great deal of pain,” Mrs. McCauley said. “He told me the police threw him over an eight-foot fence. . . . He said, ‘They beat me up.’ ”

Not Given Up Hope

Her son also said, “I may as well be dead,” Mrs. McCauley recalled in a telephone interview, but at the time she felt he had not really given up hope because he asked what had become of construction tools that he kept in the back of his truck.

Police said McCauley appeared to be in good spirits when he was served lunch in his jail cell at noon. But when a jailer returned half an hour later to pick up the lunch tray, he found McCauley hanging by his neck, Sgt. Rollo Green said.

He had fashioned a noose out of a sling used to treat his sprained shoulder and used wet toilet paper to cover a video camera that monitored the cell, Green said.

Jailers were busy with the lunch service and did not notice that the camera had been covered, said Sgt. Ron Traber. “It’s impossible to watch the cameras continuously,” Traber said. “They are there for periodic monitoring, and we try to do as much as we can.”

Donald McCauley said he doubts that his son killed himself but that, if he did, it was only because he was beaten. “To be arrested and beaten and facing more beatings--you are standing on the edge without much hope,” he said.

The McCauleys say their son’s problems with police began shortly after his older brother Ted killed himself in 1976. Ted shot himself in the head after a disagreement with a girlfriend, his mother said.

“It had a devastating effect on the whole family,” Mrs. McCauley said. “There were never any problems before that. It started when Ted died.”

His mother said Tim McCauley was 18 when he was sentenced to one year at a California Youth Authority camp for hitting another teen-ager in the face with a shovel. He was convicted again about four years ago of assaulting a Long Beach policeman during a traffic stop.

In March, 1987, state Department of Motor Vehicles records show, McCauley’s driver’s license was suspended for a year because he was in an accident and did not carry insurance.

McCauley returned to court last month, when he received three years’ probation for driving under the influence of alcohol and his license was restricted, records show.

Pamela McCauley said it may have been devastating for her son to be jailed again.

“In that moment of panic and despair, who knows what we’re capable of?” she said. “But I really find it hard to believe that he killed himself.”