Los Angeles County Coroner Resigns Amid Body Backlog
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles County's coroner is resigning, saying he wasn't given the resources to do the job in one of the nation's busiest coroner's offices.
Mark Fajardo submitted his resignation to county supervisors on Friday. He's returning to his former job as chief forensic pathologist in Riverside County. He joined L.A. County in 2013.
Fajardo tells the Los Angeles Times that he wasn't given the staffing he needed for a department that handles around 8,500 cases each year.
About 180 bodies are stacked in the morgue and hundreds of toxicology tests are backlogged.
Some families say they couldn't plan funerals for loved ones because it took weeks for the coroner's department to release the bodies.
Supervisor Michael Antonovich says supervisors are committed to ensuring the coroner has the necessary resources.