Special Investigation Team Strives to Piece Together Car Crashes

The death of the 19-year-old woman was enough to make Dane Hayward angry.

When her killer--a drunk driver--received a light sentence due to an error in evidence gathering by police, Hayward took it personally.

“The guy walked,” Hayward said, an incredulous tone in his voice. “One year plus time served,” all because the investigating officer failed to impound a tire from the driver’s car.

That officer was Hayward.

Now a sergeant in the Ventura office of the California Highway Patrol, Hayward has pledged that no colleague will err when it comes to investigating a crash site. He helped form the Specialized Incident Response Team, the only unit of its kind in the state in which CHP officers serving a single county receive special training in crash investigation.

The 15-member team investigates crashes involving fatalities, or felony acts, or those that take place in an area known for accidents--California 126 east of Santa Paula, for example.

Some mornings team members will be at an impound yard tearing apart a car, looking for clues about the crash that sent it there: Were the seat belts in place? Was the car equipped with the proper brake pads? Does the suspension show signs of mechanical alterations? Was the electrical system functioning properly?

They get no special funding and volunteer to serve on their off hours. Besides support from CHP Capt. Mike Parrazzo and a used van that was donated from San Luis Obispo County, Hayward’s teammates scrape up equipment and train on their own. The district attorney’s office also helps with training, Hayward said.

Crash investigations can take up to three weeks, and the team could work on multiple crashes at any one time. They recently had four going at once, including the July 13 crash on Victoria Avenue in Ventura that killed 13-year-old Lucia Renteria of Oxnard. Lucia’s brother, Freddy, 16, was driving the car.

“Three seat belts showed signs they had been in use at the time of the crash,” Hayward said. “One had not been in use. That turned out to be where [Lucia] was sitting.”

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Such details help the district attorney decide what, if any, criminal charges will be filed in a crash, Hayward said. None have been filed in the Renteria case.

The CHP formed the specialized response team to ensure that the district attorney gets as strong a case as possible and that everything about a vehicle is taken into consideration, including any mechanical problems affecting the car at the time of the crash.

For instance, in the case of the drunk driver that Hayward investigated about eight years ago, the team would have noted the condition of the vehicle’s tires. The driver later argued that a bad tire had cause the accident, and prosecutors did not have the evidence to dispute his claim.

“We’re trying to get the perfect case,” said Officer Ron Erickson, who brings a degree in engineering to his crash investigating technique and has worked with the specialized response team since its inception in early 1995.

“You can’t have people come in like they did in the O.J. [Simpson] trial and have them pull your case apart,” Erickson said.

Since its inception, the team has assisted the district attorney in several cases that resulted in manslaughter convictions.

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Aiding the team in its evidence-gathering are two light-reflecting measuring devices once used by Caltrans crews to survey road projects. The battery-powered Geodimeters, which were handed down when the transportation agency got new equipment, allow officers to plot out a crash site from a single reference point. The readings are accurate to within 2 inches at 8,000 feet, which can be important when a crash takes place on rough terrain or down an embankment.

Officers couldn’t get such details using a standard measuring tape, Erickson said.

The type of crash and the geography of the surrounding area determine how many points officers plot, Erickson said. “The more the road curves, the more points you want.”

The information is fed into a computer, and officers use drafting software to prepare easy-to-read reports.

“We can add all the graphic elements of a crash site,” Erickson said. “We can add cars, the lanes of the road, trees” and any other piece of information necessary for an accurate picture of the scene, he said.

“It’s time-consuming, but it’s worth it,” Erickson said.