A body was found floating Monday in Ballona Creek near Playa Vista on Los Angeles' West Side, prompting emergency crews to shut down a stretch of the popular bike path next to Lincoln Boulevard while authorities opened an investigation. A caller reported the discovery, and Los Angeles Fire Department vehicles soon filled the scene alongside Los Angeles Police Department units.
According to KTLA, an LAFD spokesperson confirmed the caller's report and the resulting emergency response. KTLA's Sky5 was over the scene as crews worked, and the outlet reported that authorities appeared to have recovered a body, which was covered by a blanket on the bike path, according to KTLA photographer Rich Prickett. A portion of the bike path near Lincoln Boulevard remained closed during the investigation, KTLA reported.
As of the station's report, an LAFD spokesperson had not provided information regarding a possible cause of death or the victim's identity, and KTLA described the story as developing, with updates expected. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner typically conducts an independent death investigation and autopsy whenever a body is recovered from a waterway, working to establish positive identification and determine cause and manner of death, per the county agency's own protocols.
A Channel That Has Seen This Before
This is not the first time a body has turned up along this stretch of waterway. In September 2023, authorities investigated a homicide in Ballona Creek near Playa del Rey after the body of 49-year-old Anthony Quinn Ussery, who had been shot in the torso, was discovered hidden inside a shed-like structure under the nearby Culver Boulevard bridge, as reported by CBS News. And in July 2021, LAPD officers and search teams discovered human skeletal remains in the Ballona Wetlands and Ballona Creek area while searching for a 32-year-old woman who had been missing since December 2020, according to Patch.
The waterway itself covers a lot of ground. Ballona Creek is a 9-mile-long concrete flood control channel draining an approximately 130-square-mile watershed that stretches from the Santa Monica Mountains and Baldwin Hills all the way to Santa Monica Bay, per Ballona Creek Renaissance. That means anything, or anyone, that enters the channel upstream in Culver City or elsewhere in Los Angeles can be carried for miles before reaching the Marina del Rey area near where crews responded.
Jurisdiction and the Bike Path Closure
The closed section sits along the Ballona Creek Bike Path, a 6.7-mile paved route maintained by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works that runs along the channel's north bank from Culver City to Marina del Rey, according to Wikipedia. Municipal police jurisdiction over the Playa Vista and Lincoln Boulevard section falls to LAPD's Pacific Division, which operates from a station roughly 1.1 miles east on Culver Boulevard, per Caltrans documents.
Downstream near the creek's mouth, Los Angeles County Public Works operates Interceptor 007, a solar-powered barge that automatically traps floating debris before it can reach Santa Monica Bay. The Ocean Cleanup, which runs the device, reported in May 2026 that it had captured more than 193.5 tons of floating trash and debris since its October 2022 deployment, underscoring how much material regularly moves through the channel.
The discovery also lands amid a string of similar cases in flood control channels across Southern California. In early September 2026, Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide detectives opened two separate death investigations after bodies were recovered on consecutive days in the nearby Dominguez Channel system in Carson, according to the Los Angeles Times.
What Remains Unknown
It is still unclear whether the person found in Ballona Creek entered the water near Lincoln Boulevard or drifted from farther inland, and authorities have not released the victim's identity or a cause of death. The investigation remains active, and KTLA has indicated further updates are expected as authorities continue their work at the scene.
