Somebody died in Malibu, and the city is bummed.

No, it's not offering to pay for the funeral of late restaurant worker Carlos Rodas, who was 32. Not that we know of, anyway.

Rather, the ultra-wealthy municipality by the sea is pissed off that the sheriff's department characterized this as a possible murder.

How dare they?

Well, here's the deal: When the Guido's restaurant kitchen worker Rodas died Sunday, he apparently left a trail of blood leading from a trash area, where he had taken out refuse, to the front of the eatery.

It looked like a homicide. On top of all that, news chopper reporters, who were monitoring police traffic, called it a shooting.

LA Weekly picked up the story and called it a murder by gun. Then there was no shooting. Then, it turned out, the coroner's office could find no obvious wounds.

Now there's word that Rodas might have died from “respiratory infection.”

And so, somebody must be blamed for scaring the shit out of the thin-skinned residents of Malibu.

The city today issued a statement blaming the sheriff's department for the situation:

Local Restaurant Worker Death_120322

The City is disappointed by the confusing and contradictory messages given to the media and public about this tragedy. The City's goal is to get the most accurate and up to date information before disseminating it to the community. Public safety and public health are the City's most important issues and the City is working hard to get the correct facts regarding this incident to allay any fears that may have arisen …

Look, fault for this can be spread around. It happens. The media wants to know when someone collapses in a pool of blood in Malibu. And the sheriff's department was right to tell us what it thought was the story.

The story changed. We'll report that.

The coroner, however, has yet to issue a final conclusion.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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