LAPD veteran a hit-run suspect
A Los Angeles police officer assigned to the elite Metropolitan Division is under investigation for allegedly driving drunk, striking two pedestrians with his Hummer and then fleeing the scene, authorities said.
William J. Skett, an eight-year Los Angeles Police Department veteran, was arrested June 20 by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at his home about 2:30 a.m., an hour after the pedestrians were injured in a Saugus parking lot.
Witnesses saw the driver of the Hummer hit a woman and a man as he backed out of a parking space, sheriff’s detectives said.
The driver got out of his vehicle, saw the victims lying injured on the ground and then abandoned his vehicle to get away from the scene, detectives said.
Attorney Ira Salzman, who is representing Skett, said “the facts will show that William Skett did not do what he was accused of doing.”
He declined to elaborate, saying he had not yet seen any police reports.
Authorities declined to identify the victims. But a relative identified the woman as Susan Sims, 62. She suffered multiple broken ribs and collapsed lungs.
The 65-year-old man received minor cuts and bruises, authorities said.
On the night of the incident, sheriff’s deputies found the abandoned Hummer at the parking lot near Bouquet Canyon and Soledad Canyon roads.
They traced the vehicle to Skett, who had left his LAPD badge in it, authorities said.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Det. Jeff Maag said that when Skett was confronted by deputies at his house shortly after the incident, “he refused to acknowledge he was the driver at the scene.”
“Deputies observed he had objective symptoms that he was under the influence of alcohol and he was arrested for drunk driving and felony hit-and-run,” Maag said. He added that deputies believe another person picked Skett up at the parking lot after he left the scene.
Sims’ son, an Antelope Valley prosecutor, said he was outraged at the officer’s alleged conduct. “If what has been told to me is true, this police officer is a coward and he is also a disgrace to the Police Department,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jon Hatemi said.
Sims, who had been in intensive care at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, was released Tuesday.
“She is doing better,” Hatemi said. “She will probably be out of work for two or three months.”
Skett is free on $50,000 bail. He has been assigned to home-duty by the LAPD pending resolution of his case, police said.
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