Man, 85, Crushed to Death After Getting Off Bus

Like clockwork, Preston George Pierce would appear every morning at 6:30 at the Langley Senior Citizens Center in Monterey Park.

The diminutive man, known to many as Zippo the Clown, boarded the bus near his Bunker Hill home in downtown Los Angeles, got off in northeast Monterey Park and walked two blocks to the center.

When he didn’t walk through the door Friday at the usual time--wearing his customary white cowboy hat and holding his white cane--friends and staff at the senior center said they knew something was wrong. Center employee Aurora Carranza heard sirens, rushed to the bus stop and saw Pierce’s hat in the street.

A man had just gotten off the bus, lost his balance and had been crushed under the vehicle’s rear wheels, she was told.

Carranza’s heart sank.

“I knew it was him,” she said.

Pierce, 85, was going blind and weighed just over 100 pounds, friends and family members said. Fellow passengers had helped him off the bus, but somehow he fell, said Marc Littman, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Since July 1995, 33 people have been killed by MTA buses, according to the agency. The Monterey Park Police and the county coroner’s office will continue to investigate the accident.

Friends and acquaintances were stunned to learn of Pierce’s death.

“Here at the senior center, people die so frequently they just kind of accept it,” said Beth Ryan, the center’s director. “But when it’s an accident and it happens unexpectedly, it really upsets people.”

Pierce was well known at the senior center. He volunteered as the custodian, setting up tables and chairs every morning, Ryan said. He also planned on marching for the 23rd time as Zippo the Clown in the city’s annual founder’s day parade in two weeks, she said.

Pierce had been performing in the role of Zippo the Clown since 1963 and had walked in more than 100 parades across the country, said his daughter, Susan Hogan of Rosemead. He had worked as an elevator operator and ran his own janitorial business until 1970. But it was the role of Zippo that was his true calling, family members said.

Sometimes he would march in an Elvis costume, pushing a baby buggy with his dachshund Toby in it. Other times he would shake hands with the audience and joke that he had glue on his hand, pulling them into the parade, said his granddaughter, Crystal Hogan.

Pierce was a creature of habit. After visiting the senior center, he would go to see his daughter, granddaughter and new great-grandson in Rosemead. He would also visit the Salvation Army headquarters in downtown Los Angeles at least every other day to sip hot chocolate and chat with employees.

Before his age prevented it, Pierce also volunteered to stand at Salvation Army donation kettles and ring bells at Christmastime. On weekends he attended the Salvation Army church in Santa Monica.

And he would get everywhere by bus, said friend Marilyn Bawden, of Santa Monica’s Salvation Army worship center.

“Here’s a guy with a white cane, blind as a bat, yet he can somehow manage to get where he wants to go,” Bawden said.

Pierce went wherever he wanted, she added. His bubbly personality endeared him to people, friends said.

“He was like a free spirit,” Bawden said. “He didn’t know shame. He could do outrageous things and get away with it.”