Families, Police Plead for Help in Solving 3 Hit-Run Crashes

The lives of George Goldberg, Doug Burrows and Isidro Ramirez were about as different from one another as possible, but their deaths were tragically similar.

All three men--a retired boiler operator, a young professional photographer and a manual laborer--had their lives cut short in a flash. All were killed in traffic accidents in or near downtown Los Angeles, and in each case, the person responsible fled the scene and remains at large and wanted by the police.

On Friday, as still-grieving relatives of each of the men stood by, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department issued a plea asking the public to help them find the drivers responsible, and offered $60,000 in rewards for their capture and conviction on felony hit-and-run charges. At least one of the drivers also could be charged with vehicular homicide for plowing into Burrows’ car more than five years ago, police said.

“At present we have nothing to go on,” said Det. Michael Kaden of the LAPD’s Central Traffic Division detective unit, who is investigating Goldberg’s death on Jan. 29 of this year. “I’m hoping someone out there knows about this.”

The detectives, the families of the three men and the two City Council members who put up the reward money said they hope that someone will come forward with a shred of evidence that may help bring the drivers to justice.

In Goldberg’s case, the 89-year-old Boyle Heights resident was struck by a white newer model stake-bed truck about 9 a.m. as he stepped off the curb at 4th Street and Boyle Avenue just as the truck was making a right turn. Goldberg was on his way home from his early morning volunteer job at a senior citizens home. He died at the scene.

According to witnesses, Goldberg slipped and somehow ended up under the truck and was run over by the rear wheels. The driver was an African American male in his 50s with salt-and-pepper hair who appeared to be talking on a cellular phone on the sidewalk after the collision, but fled when the police arrived, Kaden said.

“I do believe he realized Mr. Goldberg was extremely injured” if not already dead, Kaden said.

Goldberg’s niece, Janice Goldberg Shein, pleaded with anyone who saw the incident, or who might have been talking to the driver on the phone, to call police.

“It seems like such a pity for such a healthy vibrant man coming from volunteering and working to end his life that way,” Shein said. “What bothers us as a family is that accidents can happen, and that we understand. But somebody failing to stand up and take responsibility, to have fled the scene, that’s something that is very difficult for us to understand.”

City Councilman Richard Alatorre proposed the $25,000 reward in the Goldberg case, and the same amount in the case of Doug Burrows, who was killed while driving downtown on his way from a volunteer job. The City Council approved both.

In Burrows’ case, police know the suspect’s name: a convicted felon named Rogelio G. Pereira allegedly who ran a red light in his 18-wheeler and broadsided the 29-year-old photographer’s Toyota Tercel at 1:10 p.m. on May 1, 1993.

Then, LAPD Det. Tony Barnes said Friday, Pereira fled as his truck and Burrows’ car became engulfed in flames.

Police initially searched for Pereira, now 46, but gave up. More recently, they traveled to Mexico in search of him after a Times story detailed Burrows’ parents’ continuing efforts to solve the case on their own. But all leads proved fruitless, and Barnes said he believes Pereira is somewhere near the Mexican border, around El Centro.

Ramirez, 64, was struck and killed Jan. 19 about 9 p.m. after he entered a crosswalk at 46th and Main streets. Witnesses saw a male Latino driving an “unknown year beige Chevy or Nissan” strike Ramirez and just keep driving, said Det. Rich Leuschner. “That’s all we have.”

Councilwoman Rita Walters proposed the $10,000 reward in that case.