LOS ANGELES — The president of the Los Angeles City Council is demanding an investigation after a video appears to show police in the nearby Burbank neighborhood dropping off an obviously distressed homeless man outside his Los Angeles office and running away.
The video was released Friday by Council President Paul Krekorian, and Krekorian said it showed the officers leaving the “unhoused man in serious distress” and abandoning 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 on all fours and places his head on the sidewalk, then the police leave. The man is then seen in the video crawling on the sidewalk.
Krekorian told a news conference Friday, where he released the security footage, that he was “extremely furious.”
He said it has long been suspected that cities neighboring Los Angeles are “pushing their unhoused population into the city of Los Angeles,” rather than providing care themselves.
“The person fell to the sidewalk, clearly suffering a mental health crisis as well as physical injuries,” Krekorian said. “And the Burbank Police officers got back in their vehicle and drove back to Burbank – without providing any assistance to this person, without determining if there was anyone who could provide services to him.”
“They dumped him in North Hollywood,” Krekorian said.
Burbank is a separate city from Los Angeles, but it is right next to and almost surrounded by the city.
The Burbank Police Department said it responded to a call near a Burbank hospital about a naked man sitting at a bus stop around 8:45 a.m., and that the man said he had left the hospital voluntarily before their arrival.
The department said the man asked to be taken to the North Hollywood subway station and, along the way, to be let out where he was dropped off so he could get a cup of coffee.
“In order to obtain the individual’s cooperation so that he could get dressed, the police officers offered to drive him to a location of his choice,” police said in a statement. After the man asked to be released, “the officers immediately complied with his request,” the department said.
Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank said in a statement that there was an incident Thursday morning on public property near the hospital, and that among the calls made to police was a security guard from the hospital “seeking help for a person on a city sidewalk who appeared to be in distress. »
Los Angeles has a long-standing homeless crisis that has been difficult to resolve and has been a focus of new Mayor Karen Bass. Los Angeles spends $1 billion a year to help its population, Krekorian said, while neighboring cities do much less.
Burbank Mayor Nick Schultz said in a statement on X that “the City of Burbank takes seriously the concerns raised by Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian.”
The video was recorded Thursday morning, Krekorian said. The image was captured by a security camera located in the building where Krekorian City Council’s office is located, and building management contacted his office later that day, he said.
After his office learned of the video Thursday, they drove around looking for the man, eventually found him and got him treated through the Los Angeles Fire Department, Krekorian said.
Krekorian said the man told his staff he had sought medical attention for what he thought was a broken leg.
He said the homeless man told his staff he had recently left the city of Los Angeles.
An estimated 46,260 people are homeless in Los Angeles, according to last year’s annual homeless count. According to that count, there were approximately 75,518 homeless people in the city and County of Los Angeles.
Krekorian said he introduced a motion Friday calling on the Los Angeles city attorney, Los Angeles County attorney and state attorney general to investigate. He also said he would demand an investigation and effort from Burbank’s mayor to “consider policy changes that could be made to try to avoid this type of egregious situation.”
He called the actions in the video “senseless, cruel, inhumane and also fundamentally irresponsible.”
“As a human being, I was outraged by it and continue to be,” Krekorian said.
Krekorian said the officers responded to an extremely vulnerable person by “literally throwing her to a curb to fend for herself.”
“It’s a shame,” he said.
Burbank police said they are investigating 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,” the department said. police.