Worker plunges from top of L.A. County sheriff’s building, survives

Monterey Park police were investigating Thursday how a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s maintenance worker fell from the roof of the department’s headquarters when he was not supposed to be working there.

The 49-year-old man was in critical but stable condition after plunging 45 feet from the top of the agency’s headquarters in Monterey Park shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, said Sgt. Frank Duke of the Monterey Park Police Department.

“We are seeking to ascertain whether it was an attempted suicide or an accident,” Duke said. “We haven’t been able to talk to him yet. He wasn’t meant to be on the roof.”

There was no work scheduled there and he did not tell his supervisors he was going to do anything on the roof before he fell off the southwest side into an area near where sheriff’s command staff park.

Cal-OSHA is also investigating the incident, officials said, because it occurred in a work environment. Monterey Park police said sheriff’s officials opted to have the police department investigate because of the potential for conflicts of interest.

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