Fatality Spurs Talk of Ice Cream Truck Curb

Sitting in front of his mother’s home, Romeo Mangubat gave in to his insistent 5-year-old son, who was drawn by the melody of an ice cream truck making its way through the neighborhood on a warm Monday evening.

“I gave him my change, and told him to be very careful,” Mangubat said Tuesday. Those were the last words he said to the boy.

Young Bren Mangubat crossed the street, bought an ice cream bar and was on his way back when he was struck and killed by a pickup truck pulling away from the curb.

“There was blood all over him,” Mangubat said Tuesday. “I tried to help him breathe, but he was choking.”

“He was the sweetest boy you can have,” Mangubat said tearfully from his mother’s Cypress home. “He was a smart kid, and always careful.”

The 5:39 p.m. accident in the 4200 block of Opal Avenue has spurred a call by city officials for consideration of stiffer regulations governing ice cream trucks, which pass through neighborhoods and attract children with bright music and the promise of a cold treat on a hot summer day. They join local officials elsewhere in Southern California and throughout the United States concerned about the safety of children attracted by the trucks.

“If it proves that music really does cause children to run across the street, I certainly will call for a discussion in council,” Cypress Mayor Cecilia L. Age said.

“You don’t really think about” this type of danger, she said. “But the safety of our children is really important.”

Cypress Police Sgt. Sandy Stanton said police were searching Tuesday for the unidentified ice cream truck driver, who reportedly witnessed the accident but left while officers were trying to save Bren’s life.

The driver of the pickup, fireman Craig Ibanez, 34, of Lakewood, was questioned by officers at the scene but was not cited, Stanton said.

Bren, who was to start kindergarten in September, was taken to La Palma Intercommunity Hospital, where doctors failed to revive him, Stanton said. He was pronounced dead at the hospital of head injuries.

Mangubat said he will never forget the scenes that unfolded moments before the tragic accident.

He said that as his son walked across the street to purchase his ice cream bar, he noticed Ibanez parking his truck at the curb in front of a neighbor’s house.

Ibanez got out of the truck and went into the house, Mangubat said. A minute later, he returned to his car. At the same time, the ice cream truck driver gave the boy a handful of change and told him to take it “right back to me. He was doing what he was supposed to,” Mangubat said. As Bren, with his snack in hand, crossed the street, Ibanez started off, hitting the boy.

Ibanez pulled over after Mangubat began shouting in a panic that his son had been run over.

The issue of ice cream trucks has been debated nationally since the early 1970s, when the U.S. Transportation Department commissioned a study in Detroit after a string of injuries related to such trucks.

Last year, Los Angeles began considering regulations after a Wilmington girl’s leg was broken in an accident involving an ice cream truck.

The Los Angeles City Council has been negotiating with ice cream company representatives who oppose a ban on the trucks, Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said. “It’s clear we have to do something,” Flores said. “And we are still moving on it.”

In 1986, the city of Carson in Los Angeles County banned the trucks.

In Orange County, many cities have regulations governing ice cream trucks, ranging from prohibiting the playing of the alluring music to requiring a business permit.

The most stringent rules are in Santa Ana. That city passed a law in 1984 requiring ice cream truck operators to carry $1 million in liability insurance, register with the city and obtain a permit, and provide photographs and fingerprints to police for background checks.

But more importantly, city officials said, the law prohibits ice cream truck operators from playing the music that attracts children. Villa Park also prohibits ice cream trucks from playing music.

Roger Martinez, a manager at Santa Ana-based Tropical Ice Cream, one of the county’s major vending firms, said that a ban on the trucks or on their music in Cypress would hit Tropical in the pocketbook, but might have a more significant benefit.

“It’s bad for business, but it might be the safest thing for the kids,” Martinez said. “If they say we can’t sell there any more, there’s nothing we can do. People have to do what they have to do to protect their kids.”

Martinez said that in his days as an ice cream truck driver, he took special care to look out for the children. Now he tells his drivers to do just as he did.

“You have to go out of your way a little bit,” he said. “I always tell my drivers, any kid who wants to buy, you pull over, park, sell the ice cream, then cross them back home before you leave.”

Staff writers Catherine Gewertz, Tina Griego, Tom McQueeney and Laura Michaelis contributed to this story.