Officers Have Bird in Hand--but He’s No Stool Pigeon

One key witness in an early morning car crash near USC Sunday could clear up some mysterious details about the incident, but he’s not talking.

That’s despite the fact that officials say he is a rare Red-Spectacled Amazon parrot, an endangered species native to Mexico and Central America that is renowned for its conversational abilities.

Police say they discovered the bird about 6 a.m. after a car driven by Joseph J. Fleming, 27, crashed into a utility pole on University Street near the USC campus. University security officers who found Fleming standing by the car noticed a small green bird in a hamster cage on the passenger seat.

Just Another Bird?

LAPD officers Chris Ilizaliturri and Jeff Sandefur arrested Fleming on suspicion of drunk driving. Fleming, an administrator at St. Francis Hospital, gave a Hayward address. The officers said they found $894 in cash strewn inside the car and a larger bird cage in the trunk. But they did not realize they had an exotic parrot on their hands.

“It was just another dime-store parakeet as far as I was concerned,� Ilizaliturri said. “Good-looking bird. Not a whole lot of personality.�

But when Animal Regulation officer Margaret Neiman arrived, she identified the bird. She pointed out that it is illegal to own an endangered species without a permit. She also wanted to know why Fleming was driving around with the dove-size bird and why it was in such a small cage.

Fleming would not say why he was driving with the bird, whom he identified as “Polly.� But he grew upset when he realized Neiman would take charge of the parrot, police said.

“He said he was very close to the bird,� Sandefur said. “He said he’d do whatever he had to do to get it back.�

Part of the Family

Fleming claimed the parrot had been in his family 15 years, Sandefur said. But Neiman told the officers that “Polly,� who Fleming said is able to talk, did not appear to be more than three years old.

The parrot was taken to the 11th Avenue Animal Shelter, where it was declared healthy. Animal Regulation officials said they will seek to charge Fleming with cruelty to animals. They will also notify state and federal wildlife and agriculture officials because the bird may have been smuggled into the country and evaded a mandatory quarantine.

Based on officials’ description of the bird--green with a red face and white circles around the eyes-- Louis Ordonez, assistant animal control manager for the San Diego Zoo, identified it as a Red-Spectacled Amazon parrot. There are about 1,000 of the parrots in existence, concentrated mainly in Mexico and jungle regions of Central America.

“They’re the most popular on the black market because they’re the best talkers,� Ordonez said, putting the parrot’s black market value at about $700.

Ordonez added that no zoo will take the bird until it has been quarantined and checked throughly for diseases.