LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles City Council president is demanding an investigation after video shows police from neighboring Burbank dropping off an obviously distressed homeless man outside his LA office and driving away.
The video was released by the President of the Council Paul Krekorian Friday, and Krekorian said it shows officers abandoning the “seriously distressed man without a home,” leaving him on the sidewalk in North Hollywood.
In the video, after the officers remove the shoeless man from the back of the police vehicle, he falls to his hands and knees and lays his head on the sidewalk, and the police drive away. The man is then seen in the video crawling along the sidewalk.
Krekorian said at a news conference Friday where he played the security footage that he was “extremely livid.”
He said there has long been a suspicion that cities next to LA are “pushing their unhoused populations into the city of Los Angeles,” rather than providing care themselves.
“The individual fell to the sidewalk and was clearly experiencing a mental health crisis and physical injuries,” Krekorian said. “And the Burbank Police Department officers got back into their vehicle and drove back to Burbank – without providing any assistance to this individual, without determining if there was anyone who could provide services to this individual.”
“They dumped him in North Hollywood,” Krekorian said.
Burbank is a separate city from Los Angeles, but is right next to and almost surrounded by the city.
Burbank police said they responded to a call near a Burbank hospital around 8:45 a.m. for a naked man sitting at a bus stop, and that the man said he had voluntarily left the hospital before they arrived.
The department said the man asked to be taken to the North Hollywood Metro station, and along the way asked to be dropped off where he was dropped off so he could get a cup of coffee.
“To gain cooperation so that the person could put on clothing, the officers offered to take the person to a place of their choice,” police said in a statement. After the man asked to be released, “officers immediately complied with his request,” the department said.
Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank said in a statement that an incident occurred on public property near the hospital Thursday morning, and that calls to police included a hospital security guard who was “seeking assistance for an individual at the sidewalk of the city that appeared in distress.”
Los Angeles is facing a homelessness crisis that it has long struggled to address and that new Mayor Karen Bass has focused on. Los Angeles spends $1 billion a year helping its homeless population, Krekorian said, while neighboring cities do far less.
Burbank Mayor Nick Schultz said in a statement on
The video was recorded Thursday morning, Krekorian said. It was captured on a security camera at the building where Krekorian’s municipal office is, and building management contacted his office later that day, he said.
After his office was notified of the video Thursday, they drove around looking for the man, eventually finding him and getting him medical care from the Los Angeles Fire Department, Krekorian said.
Krekorian said the man told his staff he had sought medical attention for what he believed was a broken leg.
He said the man told his staff that he had recently become homeless outside the city of Los Angeles.
An estimated 46,260 people are homeless in Los Angeles, according to last year’s annual homeless count. By that count, there were an estimated 75,518 homeless people in the city and Los Angeles County.
Krekorian said he filed a motion Friday calling on the Los Angeles city attorney, the Los Angeles County district attorney and the attorney general to investigate. He also said he would demand an investigation and efforts from Burbank’s mayor to “look at policy changes that can be made to prevent these types of egregious situations.”
He called the actions in the video “heartless, cruel, inhumane and also fundamentally irresponsible.”
“As a human being, I was outraged by it, and I still am,” Krekorian said.
Krekorian said officers responded to an extremely vulnerable individual by “literally dumping him on a sidewalk to fend for himself.”
“It’s a shame,” he said.
Burbank police said they are conducting an investigation into the incident, including the conduct of the officers involved.
“The Burbank Police Department remains committed to treating the unhoused community with compassion and respect, and thanks Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian for bringing this matter to our attention,” police said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
