New Orleans police have named a suspect in the road-rage beating that left a La Jolla retiree hospitalized and paralyzed from the neck down. Meanwhile, the case is colored by allegations of especially slow police response time. Authorities are looking for Christopher Smith, whom detectives believe beat David so bad that a friend says he will likely be bedridden for the rest of his life. “He’s been coming (to New Orleans) for at least 20 years; he’s like a great ambassador; he’s always telling people ‘you should go, you should go, you should go,’ and then what’s disturbing is, you know, this happens to him, and he’s just kind of left to suffer,” said David’s friend, La Jolla photographer Steve Simpson.
According to police, David, 64, told detectives he threw a can at a car that nearly hit him on the night of Oct. 15 in New Orleans’ French Quarter. He then said a man got out and hit him on the face and head. David reportedly remembers only waking up unable to move his arms or legs.
Police say they initially responded on the 15th after they got a call from a witness who reported seeing a man being attacked. But it reportedly took police 40 minutes to respond and that David had left the scene when they arrived. Meanwhile, David had been taken to New Orleans’ University Medical Center. The incident was thus labeled “unfounded” until Oct. 26 amid calls from David’s family and friends.
David, who is unmarried, moved to California in about 1973 and retired nearly 10 years ago as an inspector with Underwriters Laboratories, the safety assurance giant.
“It’s two tragedies, you know,” Simpson said. “It’s one that this has happened to Doug and you don’t want this to happen to anybody and it’s so unnecessary and that it’s just been ignored, the ball dropped,” said Simpson.
“Apparently, as far as we know, nothing was done about this until we got on it,” Simpson added.
Those with any information about David or the case are asked to call Crimestoppers in New Orleans at (504) 822-1111.
– WVUE-TV, New Orleans