COUNTYWIDE : Toddler Dies After Car Rolls Over Her

A toddler who was not strapped into a child’s seat was thrown through a car’s sunroof Monday evening to become the only fatality on Ventura County highways over the Labor Day weekend, the California Highway Patrol reported Tuesday.

Killed was Melissa Perez, 22 months, of Canoga Park.

The toddler’s mother, Telma Ochaita, was driving a 1985 Toyota north on the Ventura Freeway at 7:05 p.m. when she attempted to enter the slow lane just north of Santa Clara Avenue in Oxnard, a CHP spokesman said. The car rolled over on the freeway’s shoulder, the spokesman said.

The infant, sitting on the lap of her father, Oscar Perez, was thrown through the car’s open sunroof and died when the vehicle rolled over her, Ventura County coroner’s investigator Dale Zentzis said. The parents were uninjured.

“If she had been restrained in one of those child seats she possibly would have lived,” Zentzis said.

The CHP is continuing to investigate to determine whether to ask for manslaughter charges against either parent, CHP spokesman Jim Utter said. State law requires that children be placed in car seats if they weigh less than 40 pounds or are younger than four, he said.

Last year’s Labor Day weekend also produced one fatality reported by the CHP in Ventura County, Utter said.

This year’s holiday weekend saw 31 traffic accidents in the CHP’s jurisdiction, compared with 30 for the same period last year, Utter said. Of the 31, eight were related to drunk driving, he said. Seventeen of this year’s accidents resulted in injuries, the same number as last year, he said.

The number arrested on suspicion of drunk driving totaled 39, compared with 50 for the same 1990 period, he said.

In addition, Ventura police made four arrests on suspicion of driving under the influence at three sobriety checkpoints Saturday night, traffic supervisor Sgt. George Morris said Tuesday. Another eight people were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence elsewhere in the city, he said.