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Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner

Medical Examiner's Office, LA County, California, United States of America From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner
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The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner is the medical examiner's office of the government of the County of Los Angeles, California. It is located at the Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles.

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Los Angeles County Medical Examiner Building in 2008

Established in its current form on December 17, 1920, by an ordinance approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the office has a history dating back to the appointment of the first county coroner in 1850.[1] The LACDME was previously known as both the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner and the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.

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List of chief medical examiners

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The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner recognized the following individuals as its leaders in the agency's history.[2][1]

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Former administrative roles

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Recent chief medical examiners

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Mark A. Fajardo

On July 9, 2010, the Board of Supervisors approved the appointment of Mark A. Fajardo, the Chief Forensic Pathologist at Riverside County, as the Medical Examiner-Coroner, at an annual salary of $275,000.[3] He formally replaced Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who served 2 years as the Coroner, in August 2013.[4]

Mark Fajardo resigned in March 2016. A news report indicated that "he left because it became common to have up to 50 bodies waiting to be processed and the backlog of bodies was 'nuts'. ... and toxicology tests were taking six months to complete" due to inadequate staffing.[5] Fajardo's predecessor, Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, was re-appointed on an interim basis on April 11, 2016.[citation needed]

Jonathan R. Lucas

Jonathan R. Lucas was appointed as the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner on July 10, 2017. Lucas announced his intent to leave DMEC in September 2022.[citation needed]

Odey C. Ukpo

On November 4, 2022, Odey C. Ukpo, Medical Director of the Department, was sworn in as Interim Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner. Ukpo is the first African American to serve as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner since the office was established in 1850. Ukpo joined the Department in 2014 and served as a Senior Deputy Medical Examiner before being named Medical Director in June 2022.[6][7] On March 7, 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appointed Odey C. Ukpo as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner.[8]

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See also

References

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