Police Recall Events Prior to Suicide

Less than an hour before the hit-and-run accident that apparently prompted Officer Bryce Wicks to take his own life, the 28-year veteran Los Angeles police officer seemed the happiest he had been in months, a fellow officer said.

Det. Gil Uribe, one of about 50 people who attended a Reseda retirement dinner with Wicks just hours before the accident, said he seemed relaxed.

“It was a lot of us sort of old guys, just shooting the breeze,” Uribe said. “It was real low-key.”

Wicks’ career had been relatively placid. His fellow officers described him as “well respected, well liked” and “quiet.” He was an expert and instructor in the art of fingerprinting, a skill he shared with his partner of 10 years.

But the world he had established at the LAPD was rocked four months ago when his partner took his own life, shooting himself in the head.

Since then, Wicks seemed depressed and even more profoundly quiet, according to co-workers. But Uribe said that he and other officers never would have thought that Wicks would be capable of the hit-and-run in which a Ford Bronco struck two pedestrians--a mother and 10-month-old girl--sending both to the hospital with serious injuries.

Wicks was the suspect in the accident that left Juanita Mercado, 23, of North Hollywood with critical injuries and her 10-month-old daughter in serious condition. Mercado suffered a broken collarbone, broken leg and numerous bruises in the accident. The baby reportedly had second- and third-degree road burns over 30% of her body.

On Friday, Wicks slipped away from officers who wanted to question him about the hit-and-run. A short time later, according to Los Angeles Police Department officials, Wicks, 54, picked up a revolver in his home, pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger.

“You’d never expect it from him, not Wicks,” said Uribe, who until recently had worked with Wicks at the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division. “He is absolutely the last guy I’d pick to do this.”

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Police officials Saturday would not provide further details about their investigation into the accident or suicide. Nor would they say whether they planned to conduct toxicological studies on the body. Officials said they may issue a statement early this week.

Uribe, who knew Wicks for 10 years, said he was not aware of Wicks having any major personal problems for most of his career. He said he didn’t know Wicks to drink and didn’t notice him having any alcohol at the retirement party.

Uribe said the death of Wicks’ longtime partner--described as a suicide by Police Protective League President Dave Hepburn--was not easily overcome. The two officers had sat side by side in a single cubicle.

“Every day he saw that empty chair,” Uribe said. “I’m sure he thought of who used to sit in it.”

The loss was doubly tough because the partners were also best friends.

“It was like they were connected at the hip,” Uribe said. “I never saw them apart. If you saw one of them walking down the hall, there was the other one.”

The hit-and-run in which Mercado and her baby, Leslie De La Cruz, were injured occurred about 8 p.m. in the 7900 block of Lankershim Boulevard. A partial license plate number and vehicle description led investigators to name Wicks as the suspect.

Police department officials said Friday that Wicks left the North Hollywood Division after being told that investigators were en route to question him about the accident.

Shortly after Wicks reached his home in Acton, officials said, officers arrived. As Wicks’ wife, Elaine, talked with investigators, Wicks shot himself.

Police officials would not say if Wicks’ department-issued revolver was used in the shooting.

While friends and family of Wicks grieved, the relatives of the injured remained in shock.

The woman’s father, Juan Mercado, 58, said he hadn’t slept since he saw his daughter and granddaughter struck by the Bronco on Thursday night.

“I lie awake worrying about her,” Juan Mercado said, standing outside his North Hollywood home Saturday morning. “I carry around a pain in my heart that I can’t describe.”

He said he had visited his daughter in the hospital the day before and could see that she was in great pain. He said her right leg was broken in two places, and that she was bruised from head to toe.

Juanita Mercado spoke only briefly, he said, asking to see her daughter.

“We tell her she’s OK and not to worry about Leslie, that she should concentrate on getting better,” said Juan Mercado. “But she doesn’t believe that the girl is still alive. She saw her ripped from her hands.”

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Before the accident, Juanita Mercado had been planning a trip to her native Mexico next month to introduce her daughter and the baby’s father, Melchor De La Cruz, to her mother and the six of her eight siblings still living there. She has not seen those members of her family since she came to the United States three years ago.

Santiago Castaneda, who rents a room to Juanita Mercado and De La Cruz in his North Hollywood home, said De La Cruz told him the couple was planning to marry in Mexico next month. They also were going to have the baby baptized.

Juan Mercado said it was a fluke that his daughter and granddaughter were in the intersection Thursday.

He said he usually visited her when walking home from the corner of Lankershim and Strathern where he stands daily, hoping for work. Juanita Mercado would have supper waiting for her father when he arrived.

But on Thursday, she walked the three blocks to the rented room where her father and brother live. Her brother, Sergio Mercado, was suffering from kidney stones, and she wanted to visit him.

When it was time to return home, she left pushing the baby in a stroller. Juan Mercado went with them to make sure they would arrive safely.

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They were almost across Lankershim, Juan Mercado said, when he saw the Bronco.

“I motioned for him to stop, but he didn’t,” Juan Mercado said.

He was a step away when the Bronco smashed into his daughter, he said.

“It’s not stopping,” he heard his daughter say, then came a scream he said he will never forget. The impact threw his youngest daughter into the street. He thought she was dead.

Juan Mercado said the Bronco stopped for a fraction of a second, as if the driver were hesitating, then screeched away, dragging the baby stroller along the street.

Mercado ran after the Bronco until it turned on Strathern, finally releasing the stroller. The baby was thrown onto the street.

When Juan Mercado reached his granddaughter, she was badly scraped and crying.

“It’s a miracle she’s still alive,” he said.

Skin graft surgery is planned for the child as early as Monday.

Juan Mercado said the family has no means to pay his daughter’s and granddaughter’s medical bills. He said he hopes that the Los Angeles Police Department will pitch in, because it was reportedly one of its officers who injured them.

He said police had not told him of Wicks’ suspected connection to the crime. He learned of it from reporters Friday.

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Times staff writer Beth Shuster and correspondent Claire Vitucci contributed to this story.