PROBE TO REVIEW SLOW RESPONSE IN BEATING CASE.

Byline: CAROL ROCK Staff Writer

NEWHALL -- An internal investigation is under way to find out why Santa Clarita sheriff's station deputies took more than 1 1/2 hours to answer a call about a suspicious parked car, which turned out to contain a badly beaten man who later died.

Sheriff's officials said they received one call at 10:23 a.m. Tuesday and a second at 12:05 p.m. reporting a car parked erratically at 16th Street and Newhall Avenue with a man slumped inside.

Deputies arrived after the second call and found a man later identified as Brad Korfscholt, a former Los Angeles police officer. He died early Wednesday at a hospital. An autopsy to determine the cause of death is scheduled today.

According to station records, the first call received came from a citizen reporting a suspicious vehicle parked in the street with a man sitting inside.

``The caller said that someone was in the car and it was parked about two feet from the curb,'' said Lt. Mike Dunkle, acting commander of the Santa Clarita Valley station. ``He said it looked as though the guy inside wasn't doing good.''

``We get these kinds of calls several times a day; they fall under the umbrella of suspicious person in a vehicle,'' Dunkle said. ``Initially it didn't sound emergent (prompting the quickest response); for all we know it could have been someone asleep in the car. Calls like this could be described as routine.''

In the second call, a female caller reported the person was still in the car and ``there was blood everywhere.'' Dunkle said deputies arrived three minutes later.

``We're not looking at defending this yet, but the bottom line is someone called here with an issue and we didn't send a car for an hour and a half,'' he added.

Dunkle said the tapes of the calls will be examined and deputies are being interviewed by an incident review committee within the station.

``We're asking ourselves if there were errors, and if there were, what were they and how can we prevent them in the future,'' he said.

Lt. Diane Walker said station personnel were stunned 

``These calls are not uncommon,'' she said. ``It didn't come in on the 911 line, so we get there when we can. There's no excuse, but we're human and can only do so much.''

The car in which Korfscholt was found was impounded for examination by homicide investigators. Anyone with information regarding the case is asked to call the Homicide Bureau at [phone].

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

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