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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian was demanding answers Friday from Burbank officials after his office acquired a video showing a pair of uniformed officers emerge from a Burbank police car as they dropped off in a neighboring city a homeless man in need of aid.
"We have known for years that neighboring cities were dumping unhoused people on the streets of Los Angeles. Here is the proof," Krekorian said as he showed the video to reporters at a City Hall press conference earlier today.
Krekorian described what is in the video. "A person was discharged from that vehicle in handcuffs. The handcuffs were removed. The person fell to the sidewalk, clearly experiencing a mental health crisis, as well as physical injuries, and the officers of the Burbank Police Department got back to their vehicle and drove back to Burbank without giving any aid to this person, without determining whether there was anyone who could provide services to this person," he said.
"We in Los Angeles have worked long and hard to bring our unhoused neighbors off the streets by building interim shelters, tiny homes, navigation centers and supportive housing. Meanwhile, neighboring jurisdictions have simply removed unhoused people from their streets and dumped them on ours," Krekorian said. "This is inhumane and inexcusable."
The video was obtained from a security camera and recorded directly in front of the Krekorian's North Hollywood district office Thursday around 8 a.m. After viewing the video, office staff located the abandoned man, whose name was withheld. They called the Los Angeles Fire Department to provide medical aid. The man was later taken to a nearby medical facility.
Krekorian is calling on the City Attorney, District Attorney and the Attorney General of California to investigate both this incident and the alleged ongoing practice of one jurisdiction dumping its homeless and indigent residents on the streets of another. The council president said that he introduced a motion Thursday to have the full council vote on the issue.
Part of the motion also requests the city of Burbank and its mayor and City Council to respond to this incident and provide the city of L.A. with their policies on homelessness, relocation of unhoused individuals and policy changes that will be made as a result of the incident.
The L.A. Council's Rules, Elections, Intergovernmental Relations Committee, as well as the Housing and Homeless Committee are expected to consider the motion next.
Neither a representative of the city of Burbank nor the Burbank Police Department responded to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
Krekorian said he believes the Burbank mayor and City Council are not aware of what happened. KNX News reported that at least one City Council member they contacted requested to see the video.
According to council president's staff who spoke with the man, he was seeking health care at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank when something happened that prompted hospital staff to determine him to be unruly. The Burbank Police Department responded to a hospital request to pick him up.
The hospital released a statement Friday afternoon.
"We are aware of an incident Thursday morning on public property near the hospital," according to a statement from Providence St. Joseph. "Our understanding is that multiple calls were made to police, including one from a hospital security guard seeking help for a person on a city (Burbank) sidewalk who appeared to be in distress."
The homeless man told Krekorian's staff that he believed he had broken his leg. Krekorian's staff could not confirm the injury, but in the video, the man can be seen falling to the ground and struggling to move.
Krekorian's staff was not able to locate the man on Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority's Homeless Management Information System. After asking him questions, they ascertained he had previous addresses outside the city of L.A., and he said he had only recently become homeless.
The council president noted that this is not the first time something like this has happened. According to Krekorian, in October 2022 Burbank Police Department officers dropped off someone at the Homeless Services Navigation Center in North Hollywood.
"At least that was a door to services," Krekorian said. "We built the navigation centers specifically so people could drop in and have access to services."
Krekorian emphasized that the city has dedicated well over a billion dollars to homeless services and housing just in the 2023-24 fiscal year. He added that the city will never be able to address these issues as long as other jurisdictions shirk their responsibilities.
"Part of the results of the motion will be, I hope, to have a more comprehensive discussion within the L.A. City Council because we're all impacted by this," Krekorian said. "We are going to extraordinary lengths (to address homelessness) and many of our neighbors are not providing services to people who are unhoused."
The council president emphasized that homelessness is a regional issue caused by nationwide issues such as the opioid crisis, a failure to address mental health challenges, and housing affordability.
"All of these are issues that impact the entire region, the entire state, even the entire nation. And yet, people look to Los Angeles City Hall to be the remedy for that, and we are doing more than our share to provide those remedies," Krekorian said. "But people who are in public service in other areas need to start stepping up and doing their share."