Wife, 56, of Miami veteran cop dies after getting trapped for hours in 'cage section' of his Ford Explorer patrol car while 'looking for something' in 90-degree heat
The wife of a Florida police officer died after she got trapped in his work SUV for hours in sweltering 90-degree temperatures, officials say.
Clara Paulino, 56, died inside her husband’s police Ford Explorer on Friday outside her home in Miami Shores, according to the Miami Herald.
She is the wife of Aristides Paulino, who has been a cop in Miami for 25 years.
He was asleep in their home after his midnight shift when his wife climbed into the back seat of the vehicle looking for something around 1pm and got trapped inside by the door’s latching mechanism, which prevents it from being opened from the inside.
Her fingerprints were found all over the interior of the Ford Explorer in the horrific incident.
Clara Paulino, 56, died inside her husband’s police Ford Explorer on Friday outside her home in Miami Shores. Her husband is Aristides Paulino, a 25-year police officer based in Miami. The scene outside the home pictured above
Paulino didn’t have her cellphone and the safety partition in the vehicle prevented her from reaching over the front seat to honk the horn for help.
'It’s literally a cage,' one Miami cop said of the vehicle’s rear seat.
The Miami police cars have a cage that separates the back seat from the front seat and has bars on the windows and can only be opened from the outside, according to NBC Miami.
Aristides, 58, and the couple’s son found her body around 5.30pm – about four and a half-hours after she got trapped.
It’s not clear what she went into the SUV for. Her husband left it unlocked in their driveway after he returned from work and went straight to bed Friday morning.
Investigators are treating Clara’s death as an accident, but an investigation is underway by the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homicide Bureau.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office is still investigating and has not ruled on a cause of death.
Investigators are treating Clara’s death as an accident, but an investigation is underway by the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homicide Bureau. Police on the scene above
A police source told the Herald she had a history of medical problems that may have contributed to her death inside the vehicle.
'It’s very preliminary,' police spokesman Lt. Carlos Rosario said. 'There’s still a lot of work to be done. But right now, it’s an unclassified death.'
Aristides and Clara had been married for 28 years.
Their son Aristides Jr said to the Herald the family didn’t want to talk about her death.
'We haven’t even buried her yet and it’s a lot [of] pain,' he said.
'Horrible, horrible, horrible, imagine someone, that happening to someone,' neighbor Daphne Steward said to NBC. 'She loved her family and her children and I believe it's just an unfortunate situation.'
While hot-car deaths are not unusual, they’re more common among young children left in vehicles by a caretaker. It’s rare for a person to die by getting trapped in a law-enforcement patrol car.
