Councilman Takes Aim At Boarding Homes After Quadruple Homicide
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The City Council convened a special meeting Monday to discuss ways to improve the regulation of local boarding homes after four people were murdered at an unlicensed residence in Northridge earlier this month.
KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports Councilmember Mitchell Englander wants to hear from the Los Angeles Police Department regarding the need for a Community Care Facilities Ordinance (CCFO).
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Englander, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, introduced the legislation on Friday, which calls for amendments to the California "Public Safety Realignment" laws that are moving criminals from state prisons into county jails.
The legislation would focus on unlicensed group homes with overcrowded, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, like those found in the property on the 17000 block of Devonshire Street where four victims were found shot to death in the early morning of Dec. 2.
The victims — who were identified as 24-year-old Amanda Ghossen of Monterey Park; 26-year-old Jennifer Kim of Montebello; 34-year-old Robert Calabia of Los Angeles, and 49-year-old Teofilo Navales of Castaic — were reportedly visiting friends at the residence.
A dozen people in all were living in the house, which had been subdivided with several kitchens built in rooms, and several other code violations and fire hazards, according to Englander, who said the CCFO would bring some much-needed reforms to local group homes.
"It'll bring up the current zoning code to either require that they're licensed and/or that they're sort of registered, if you will, with the city of Los Angeles," he said.
Under Assembly Bills 109 and 117, the state's realignment program currently focuses only on a convict's most recent offense and not the inmate's entire criminal history.
Englander said his proposal could possibly have even prevented the alleged shooter, Ka Pasasouk, along with three other suspects from committing the murders.
"If this person were still incarcerated, this terrible crime would not have been committed. These four people would still be alive," he said.
Police officers and three former California State Legislators were among the signers of the resolution, which was seconded by Councilmembers Paul Krekorian, Dennis Zine, Joe Buscaino, Paul Koretz, and Herb Wesson.
Click here to read the entire text of the draft ordinance.
