Disneyland Probe Needs Review, Says Detective

Anaheim’s top police detective on Friday called for a review of how his department handles major accidents at Disneyland, while the city manager ordered a full report on the Christmas Eve accident that killed a tourist at the park.

Det. Capt. Roger Baker said he wishes his investigators had reached the scene earlier. Also, he said, it was unfortunate that Disneyland officials cleaned the site of the accident immediately, long before his department had a chance to investigate.

“I think it would have been nice for us to be there sooner, and by that I mean having the scene [undisturbed] there for us when we got there,” Baker said. Police reports released Thursday showed that investigators did not arrive at the scene for nearly three hours after the accident, then spent an hour and a half being briefed by park officials in a conference room before going out to the scene.

“We need to look at how those scenes are processed,” Baker said, noting that Disneyland didn’t photograph the scene before the cleanup.

“You would have thought that somebody would have taken pictures,” he said.

Baker’s comments were a marked contrast to those of Police Chief Randall Gaston a day earlier. On Thursday, the chief said it is “usually counterproductive to rush directly to the scene.”

The uproar over the accident at the Columbia sailing ship, which also severely injured the tourist’s wife and a Disneyland worker, resounded through Anaheim, with the city manager promising a full review before the City Council next week.

A coroner’s report said the accident occurred when a dock worker tried to tether the Columbia to the dock while it was moving too fast. A metal cleat snapped off the boat and struck the Duvall, Wash., couple in the head. The man died two days later.

Other agencies that police theme parks have said they would never handle such incidents the way Anaheim police did. Evidence at a serious accident should never be disturbed, and their investigators go to such scenes immediately, they said.

Baker said he is satisfied that his investigators “touched all bases” in reconstructing the accident and determining no crime had occurred. He said he’s confident that all the evidence was preserved and accounted for. But according to the police reports, the evidence had been gathered and stored before investigators arrived on the scene, and they relied on the memory of a Disneyland guard for information on where various items had landed.

City Council members are expected to be presented with a “comprehensive chronological” report next week detailing police response to the accident, City Manager James D. Ruth said Friday.

“What we will do is look at the procedure,” Ruth said. “We will review that to see if there is anything we can do differently, but at this point we feel we did all we could have done, given the circumstances.”

Ruth defended the actions of the city’s Police Department, the first of whose patrol officers arrived at the park 43 minutes after the accident.

“We responded as best we could,” Ruth said. “We responded as a medical aid, not a fatality.”

While Walt Disney Co. provides the city with valuable tourism dollars from its world-famous theme park and professional sports teams, the city manager denies that Disneyland got any special treatment.

“We have a great coordination with Disney and a great relationship, but we don’t give any special considerations,” Ruth said. “We do what is professionally appropriate to do.”

Mayor Tom Daly said Friday that he is “satisfied with the amount of detail that has already been made available and the amount of scrutiny that has occurred.”

“Police Chief [Gaston] is a complete professional,” Daly said. “I trust his judgment in determining the best response to accidents of this nature.”

Gaston could not be reached for comment, but Capt. Steve Sain, speaking on the department’s behalf, said, “On industrial accidents, there are some that we get called on and some we do not get called on. It depends on the severity of the accident. But this department will take a look at any of the incidents we were involved in and review that. If we feel there is something that needs to be changed, we will look at that.”

Luan Phi Dawson, 33, was killed. His wife, Lieu Thuy Vuong, 43, and ride operator Christine Carpenter, 30, were seriously injured.

Sain said police were not called until 26 minutes after the 10:40 a.m. accident and at first were told that paramedics did not need police assistance. But the department still sent two patrol officers over at 11:14 a.m., he said.

“These are evolving events, and you try and do the best job that you can, and you are working with the knowledge that you have at the time,” Sain said. “A week later, you might look at it a bit differently. But initially it comes in as an accident, and we were not requested.”

Sain said police investigators did not feel purposely delayed as they interviewed witnesses inside offices at the park before inspecting the accident site.

The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the accident because a Disneyland worker was injured.