IRVINE - Police are investigating as a homicide the death of a man found Tuesday morning on a popular bike path behind an upscale apartment complex in a city considered among the nation?s safest.
Late Tuesday afternoon police identified the man via Twitter as 51-year-old Irvine resident Sidney Siemensma.
Irvine police responded around 7 a.m. after someone called to report an injured man on the San Diego Creek Trail behind Los Olivos Apartment Homes, according to the Irvine Police Department. The community is located at 350 Gitano, north of Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and south of I-405.
When officers and Orange County Fire Authority personnel arrived, they found a body with multiple injuries.
Police were attempting to determine the ?nature and cause? of those injuries to deduce the cause of death, said Farrah Emami, public information officer for the Irvine Police Department.
A bicycle was found near the man?s body, and police are investigating whether it?s related to the incident, Emami said.
It appears that the homicide is an isolated incident, she added.
The body was visible to drivers on I-405 Tuesday morning, so he was covered with a tent until coroner officials arrived around 10:15 a.m.
Josie Santos, 20, of Santa Ana said she saw the body as she was driving south on I-405 at around 7:45 a.m. with two co-workers to their jobs at an Irvine loan company
As their car slowed down to switch lanes and exit the freeway onto Irvine Center Drive, Santos glanced over and spotted an older white male on the trail wearing what appeared to be a sweater, shorts and running shoes, she said.
?There was blood all over his clothing,? she said, adding that about a half-dozen police officers stood around the man.
Yvette Middleton, a nanny for a family who lives in Los Olivos, said she was preparing to take the 10-month-old boy she babysits out for a stroll on the trail when she spotted police and turned back.
?It?s crazy,? she said while pushing a stroller. ?I walk here every day for an hour.?
Valerie Harlow, a Los Olivos resident, said the police activity interrupted her morning walk on the trail.
?I?m not going down there because it?s roped off,? she said. ?They (police) had to turn bikers away.?
The FBI this past fall said Irvine had recorded its lowest-ever per capita rate of violent crime and property crime in 2014.
That year, according to the same federal data, Irvine had the nation's lowest per capita violent crime rate among cities with a population of at least 100,000 for the 11th year running. The city had two homicides in 2015, according to police.