Milton Olin Jr., former chief operating officer of music-sharing site Napster and Hollywood Attorney, died Sunday when his bicycle was struck by a Sheriff's Deputy's patrol car at the 22000 block of Mulholland Highway. LASD confirms that Olin was in the bicycle lane at the time of the collision.
Both the driver and bicyclist were traveling east on Mulholland at the time of the crash. The LASD Cruiser has a cracked windshield, suggesting that the car hit Olin from behind at a high rate of speed. The LASD reports that the windshied was cracked when Olin's body was thown onto the Hood. Olin was pronounced dead at the scene.
At this point, the Sheriff's investigating the crash have not released the name of the driver, who was on duty and not responding to an emergency call at the time of the crash. The deputy was taken to the hospital for cuts and bruises. As one would expect when a cyclist is killed by unsafe driving, there have not been charges filed.
As a quick experiment, I ran a News Google search on "Milton Olin." As you would expect, dozens of stories detailing how he was killed by a Sheriff's deputy immediately filled my screen. I ran the same search but added the word "suspect."
If there was no vehicle malfunction, and there is no report anywhere that a malfunction is to blame, it seems odd that nobody in any news outlet or the LASD itself would use the word "suspect" when discussing the case. Sentences such as "the LASD has yet to identify the suspect" should be common place. Is the wall of blue already closing around Olin's killer?
For a department besieged by charges of cronyism, a clear and transparent investigation of the crash should be a requirement. Step one would be releasing the name of the suspect and identifying him as such. Step two would be charing him or her with a crime.
Biking In L.A. reports that Milton Olin Jr. was a practicing attorney since graduating from UCLA Law School in 1975, and worked as vice president of business development for A&M Records — which was chiefly responsible for the lawsuit that led to Napster’s bankruptcy. He also served briefly as the senior vice president for business development for Firstlook.com before joining Napster.
