Junkyard Employee Slain in Bid to Stop Argument

An employee of a Wilmington junkyard was shot and killed at the yard early Thursday when he intervened in an argument over a towing fee, Los Angeles police said.

“He was the peacemaker,” Lt. Larry Hinrichs said of the victim, Donald Dean Dollard, 55, of Long Beach.

Dollard, homicide investigators said, was killed about 4 a.m. at a junkyard in the 1000 block of Foote Avenue. Shortly afterward, investigators arrested Napoleon Godoy, 28, of Wilmington on suspicion of murder. Godoy, they said, was one of two men operating the tow truck.

Early Thursday morning, according to Hinrichs, Dollard and another employee of the yard were awaiting the arrival of a car. When it arrived, Dollard’s co-worker got into an argument with the tow truck operators over the charge and Dollard intervened, Hinrichs said. As he did, the passenger in the tow truck pulled a shotgun from the vehicle and shot Dollard, who died at the scene.