HASTINGS' TOX REPORT DUE WITHIN TWO WEEKS

August 9. 2013

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office said Friday they should be finished with their toxicology examination of  journalist Michael Hastings within two weeks.

“We are continuing testing and want to make sure we don’t miss anything and no one can come back and say 'did you do this or that?',” said Ed Winter, assistant chief of operations at the coroner’s office. Winter said an examination like this can test for  more than 800 medicines, drugs and prescription combinations. "It should be done within two weeks."

Hastings, best known for his 2010 Rolling Stone profile of Stanley McChrystal which led to the former four-star general’s ouster, died in a fiery crash in the early morning hours of June 18 when his Mercedes Benz slammed into a palm tree on Highland  Avenue just south of Melrose Avenue.

A security camera in front of Pizzeria Mozza captured the car speeding by, jumping a median curb, then bursting into a fireball after hitting the tree. A YouTube clip of the restaurant's security footage (http://www.youtube.com/watchv=EjaPHWNzTHQ) ,posted by WeAreTheSavageNation,  has over 275,000 views.  

The lead investigator in the case, LAPD Detective Connie White, said earlier this week she was “not at all upset with the release of the video,” and added, as she has stated before,  “there has been nothing to change the LAPD's initial view that Michael Hastings’ death was due to an accident.”  White said Wednesday it might be another month for the case to be closed.

A video by Loudlabs News, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhqKRugk8QabsNews  whichshows which catches the Mercedes running a red light at Highland and Santa Monica Boulevard, a half mile north of the crash scene, has over 170,000 views.  

 The photo below is of Hastings’ Mercedes Benz being towed away hours after the crash.