LA City Council calls for probe into alleged homeless dumping by Burbank police
Video showed Burbank police leave a man on a NoHO sidewalk. L.A. City Council president says the man looked troubled.
The Los Angeles City Council is calling for investigations and a response from Burbank city officials about an incident in which two Burbank police officers got caught on camera dropping off a homeless person in front of L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian’s district office and then driving off.
Krekorian later described the man, who was left in front of his North Hollywood office, as distressed.
The L.A. City Council voted 13-0 on Tuesday, June 25, to ask City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, L.A. District Attorney George Gascón and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate the incident “and to take the maximum appropriate legal action against the City of Burbank and the Burbank Police Department.”
When Krekorian introduced the council motion earlier this month, he declined to say if he believed the Burbank officers had committed a crime, but he said at the time that “as a human being, I was outraged” by the incident.
The June 6 incident was caught on surveillance camera.
The roughly one-minute video that Krekorian’s office released the next day showed a Burbank police vehicle stopping in front of the building where Krekorian’s district office is located. Two officers got out, one opened the back seat door to let out a man and the other officer removed what appeared to be hand restraints on the man.
As the Burbank officers drove off, the man — whom Krekorian says appeared to be suffering from a mental health crisis — got down on his hands and knees and rested his head on the sidewalk. He laid there for several seconds and then the video ended.
The man eventually left the area and was later found on the street by one of Krekorian’s staff members. He was taken to a hospital.
The council president has criticized the Burbank police officers, accusing them of “dumping” a distressed homeless person on the street. He called the officers’ actions “callous, cruel (and) inhumane.”
The city of Burbank issued a statement after Tuesday’s L.A. City Council vote, stating that it “welcomes any investigation and is in the process of conducting its own rigorous internal investigation.”
“As images depicted on video don’t always relay the entire situation, the City of Burbank cautions against inflammatory rhetoric and a rush to judgment without the benefits of the investigation findings,” the statement said.
Burbank police Sgt. Stephen Turner on Tuesday referred the Los Angeles Daily News back to a statement that the department issued on June 7, a day after the incident.
That statement said officers responded to a call on June 6 about a naked man at a bus stop outside Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
The man, who got dressed when police arrived, told the officers he was homeless and had been taken to the hospital from the “Sunland/Tujunga area.”
According to Burbank police, the man said he’d suffered a leg injury years ago but declined medical treatment. The police department said he asked to be taken to the Sunland/Tujunga area but then agreed to be taken to the Metro Red Line station in North Hollywood.
On the way, the man asked to be let out of the police car to get coffee. Officers let him out immediately on the 5200 block of Lankershim Boulevard, the police department said. That is also the location of L.A. Council President Krekorian’s office.
The department said it would conduct an in-depth investigation into the incident.
Turner said on Tuesday the investigation is ongoing and it is unknown when it will be completed.
In addition to calling for investigations, the motion that the L.A. City Council passed Tuesday asked Burbank city officials, including the mayor and city councilmembers, to respond to the incident. They asked for information about Burbank’s current policies on relocating homeless people and any policy changes that may come as a result of this incident.