Eric Valencia, 37, was found dead inside an APD patrol car on Thursday, nearly a week after he was arrested on suspicion of DUI and child endangerment.
The Azusa Police Department has released bodycam footage from the officers who arrested Eric Valencia nearly a week before he was found dead in the back of a patrol car.The footage is from the night of March 20, when officers pulled him over with suspicions that he was intoxicated with children in the backseat of his car.
On the video, an officer asks Valencia if he'd been drinking, to which he replies that he had one beer at 10 a.m. that day.The officers then had the 37-year-old perform various sobriety field tests. A breathalyzer test's preliminary results showed his blood alcohol content was about twice the legal limit. He was arrested shortly after on suspicion of DUI and child endangerment. When asked about taking a blood sample to check for definitive BAC, Valencia appeared to slur his speech in his response, telling officers that he's an alcoholic, so his test would likely show alcohol in his system.Valencia was released from jail three days later, on Monday. Shortly after, he was shown on security footage climbing into the back of an out-of-service patrol car that was left unlocked. He showed no signs of distress at the time, police said.The day after his release, his family reported him missing – an action they claim that APD didn't handle as they should.'They didn't take us seriously when we were telling them,' sister-in-law Julia McCormick said during a news conference on Monday. 'Come to find out that he was here, in a car, the whole time.' It's not clear why Valencia entered the car in the first place, but on Thursday morning, a department employee preparing to wash the car found his body inside.As of Tuesday, the cause of death is yet to be determined. Investigators said they didn't find obvious signs of trauma on his body.Police Chief Rocky Wenrick said during a news conference on Monday that Valencia had a 'working' cell phone in his possession inside the vehicle, and he never made an attempt to call the department. He said the department hired an outside firm to investigate the situation.Wenrick didn't answer whether Valencia was trapped inside the vehicle.To Valencia's family, the more information that comes out simply spurs more questions.'He was a good person, and he didn't deserve to go like this,' McCormick said. 'We want answers and justice for him.'
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