Posted on 08/25/2020 1:08:51 AM PDT by nickcarraway
We're working to get more details on this story and will update it as soon as we know more. BY MIAMI HERALD
The wife of a veteran Miami police officer died after she was trapped for much of a sweltering afternoon in the back seat of his patrol SUV at the family’s Miami Shores home, authorities confirmed on Monday.
Investigators are treating the death of Clara Paulino, 56, on Friday as a horrific accident. Detectives suspect that Paulino — as her husband slept inside the home after finishing a midnight shift — climbed into the backseat of his marked Ford Explorer SUV in search of something, then could not escape when the doors somehow closed and a self-locking mechanism kicked in.
As the temperature outside soared well over 90 degrees on Friday, Paulino spent several hours stuck inside the SUV until her family discovered her body after 5 p.m., according to one law-enforcement source. Miami-Dade detectives found her fingerprints all over the inside of the SUV.
“Clearly, she was panicked and trying to get out,” the source told the Miami Herald.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office is still investigating, and has not ruled on a cause or manner of death. Paulino, according to a law enforcement source, had a history of medical problems that may have contributed to her death inside the SUV.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Always have tool to cut and break the window stashed inside a vehicle. They are very inexpensive.
Probably not a good idea in patrol cars.
Back of a working police unit would be a bad place for such, tho...
No cell phone? I always have mine with me...in my hand or pocket.
Back of a working police unit would be a bad place for such, tho...
Drew68 to greeneyes
Always have tool to cut and break the window stashed inside a vehicle. They are very inexpensive.
Probably not a good idea in patrol cars.
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Well, it doesn’t have to be stashed in the back-just stashed where a family member could get it before getting into the back. Better than baking to death.
Why wasn’t she beeping?
Don’t know why she wasn’t beeping.
Are there cars that only allow beeping when the car is turned on? I don’t remember such.
I don’t know. My car only beeps if the lights are left on or the keys are in the ignition. I don’t recall the article having a lot of details. It seems very strange.
Is the back of a squad car a cage?
How could she beep?
You don’t have a horn on your steering wheel?
Oh, I realized she couldn’t get in the front. I wonder what she was doing back there?
My horn doesn’t beep.
I didn’t realize that you meant the horn when you said beep. I assumed that she couldn’t get to the front-cop car - cage -maybe?
A partition between the back seat and the front seat prevented her from getting to the horn and she did not have her cellphone with her to call for help, sources said.
“It’s literally a cage,” said one Miami police officer familiar with the vehicle.
Perhaps she was disabled or somehow incapacitated.
Was alcohol involved?
She wasn’t Old-old.
I did not see that in the article-barely finished it when all the pop ups started blocking the screen.
Damn, horrible story. It’s a freak occurrence, as the back seat area of the vehicle is of course designed to prevent escapes by detainees. The vehicle design worked as intended. The problem is that this woman was in place where she wasn’t supposed to be. Tragic.
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