Police Investigator Is Found Shot to Death : Van Nuys: Sgt. Michael Lund, reportedly despondent, apparently kills himself in the parking lot of the station.

A Los Angeles police internal affairs investigator, reportedly despondent over personal problems, shot himself to death in the parking lot of the Van Nuys police station Tuesday, police said.

Sgt. Michael Lund drove into the parking lot about two hours late for his 8:30 a.m. shift, sat in his car for awhile, then put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, police said.

“Officers coming and going saw him sitting in his car”--whether before or after his death was unclear--said Lt. John Dunkin, a police spokesman. “People thought he was reading a newspaper.”

The body was noticed by another officer about 11:30 a.m.

Dunkin said that Lund, 39, apparently died from a single bullet to the head, and that ballistic tests would be conducted on a handgun recovered from his car.

Lund, a 15-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, had spent about a year in the Internal Affairs unit at the station’s Valley Bureau, which oversees the five San Fernando Valley police divisions. Police would not comment officially on what could have driven Lund to suicide, and did not release details about his personal life, including whether he was married or had children.

But Dunkin said work-related matters did not appear to be a factor, according to a preliminary investigation. “There is no (police) investigation he is involved in that would have had any bearing on this,” Dunkin said. “We’re not going to discuss that in any detail. Whatever it was, it was obviously very troubling to him.”

Several officers, who asked not to be identified, said there were indications that Lund was troubled over a personal relationship, possibly with a woman. Just before his death, he had dropped his young daughter off at her school, one police source said.

Danny Staggs, president of the Police Protective League, said he had been Lund’s partner 12 years ago when the two worked the Skid Row area Downtown. He described Lund as a popular, easygoing officer respected by his colleagues.

“We are just dumbfounded. We are lost,” Staggs said. “It is tragic when you lose a police officer from their own weapon.

“He is an outstanding police officer, very amicable, very fair to everyone on the street,” he added. “He is very highly thought of. Everyone is in shock about it.”

*

Said another officer: “He was a pretty stable, happy-go-lucky guy. I guess we all have personal problems, and sometimes they overwhelm us. That’s what happened here.”

Although Lund’s death is apparently the first suicide by a Los Angeles police officer in at least several years, according to Staggs, he said concern over the issue has come to a head in recent years. He said that the issue of suicide was discussed at a meeting of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police recently, and that most police experts said officers’ domestic problems--compounded by the intense stress of the job--were the primary cause of suicides.