50-floor skyscraper plunge investigated as suicide

Passers-by look up at the Wilshire Grand Tower on South Figueroa Street where a worker fell to his death Thursday, March 17, 2016.
Passers-by look up at the Wilshire Grand Tower on South Figueroa Street where a worker fell to his death Thursday, March 17, 2016.

LOS ANGELES — Authorities are investigating whether an electrician intentionally leaped to his death from the 53rd floor of Los Angeles' tallest skyscraper onto an intersection humming with a normal weekday's bustle, the coroner said Friday.

The coroner is also investigating the possibility of Thursday's death being a workplace accident, because it happened at a construction site, said Ed Winter, assistant chief Los Angeles County Coroner. But police and officials for Turner Construction, the main contractor on the unfinished 73-story Wilshire Grand Center, interviewed workers and said the fall appeared to be a suicide.

Winter said as far as he knew, there was no note.

It took some time for people below to realize the horror of what had happened, said Los Angeles Times photographer Mel Melcon, who was on assignment at the building.

"No one thought it was a body," Melcon told his paper. "We heard no screams."

The man was identified as Joseph Sabbatino, 36, of Palmdale, Winter said. An autopsy was pending.

He had taken off his hard hat and had not been wearing a safety harness because it wasn't required for the bottom floors he'd been working on, said Lisa Gritzner, spokeswoman for Turner Construction.

"We have confirmed with (California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health and Los Angeles police) that the incident which occurred at the Wilshire Grand project site on March 17 was not work-related," a statement issued by Turner Construction read.

Work was shut down Friday and counselors would be on hand for employees, the statement said.

Winter said the man, a new employee on his second day on the job, died instantly. The investigation will continue.

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