A video released Friday by Los Angeles City Council Speaker Paul Krekorian appears to show two Burbank police officers leaving a barefoot homeless man on a Los Angeles sidewalk in front of Krekorian's office and walking away.
Krekorian, whose office is in North Hollywood, about 1.5 miles from the Burbank border, criticized the police officers as “inhumane” and accused them of failing to help the man.
“They abandoned him in North Hollywood,” Krekorian said at a news conference Friday.
In a statement, the Burbank Police Department said officers responded to a call about a naked individual, made sure the man was dressed and were taking him to the Metro Red Line station in North Hollywood when he asked to be seen. They will let you out so you can get coffee.
The department is conducting “an in-depth investigation” into the incident, including a review of body cameras and the interior of the car.
“The Burbank Police Department remains committed to treating the homeless community with compassion and respect, and thanks Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian for bringing this matter to our attention,” the statement said.
The roughly one-minute video, captured Thursday morning by a security camera, shows a patrol car marked “Burbank Police” stopping on a sidewalk in front of Krekorian's district office on Lankershim Boulevard.
Two uniformed officers help a man out of the back seat of the car and one of them appears to remove the handcuffs from his wrists.
The man, barefoot and dressed in dark, long-sleeved clothing, limps out of the vehicle, flailing his arms and rubbing his face before falling to all fours and pressing his head against the sidewalk. Then he lies face down.
Krekorian said his staff located the man in the area Thursday afternoon and he was receiving medical attention.
The man told Krekorian staff that he had recently become homeless outside the Los Angeles city limits. He said he was at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and became “unruly,” so Burbank police officers showed up at the hospital and eventually took him to North Hollywood, according to Krekorian.
When staff found the man Thursday afternoon, “he was not doing well,” Krekorian said. “I couldn't walk. He was still in the neighborhood. “We called the Los Angeles Fire Department.”
Krekorian said he did not know if police officers knew they were going to drop the man off in front of his district office.
On Friday, Krekorian filed a motion requesting the appointment of a city attorney. Hydee Feldstein Soto, Los Angeles County District. Lawyer. George Gascón and California Attorney. Gen. Rob Bonta to investigate the incident.
The Burbank police statement said officers were called around 8:45 a.m. Thursday to a bus stop outside Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.
They found the naked man described in the 911 call and offered him clothes, but he had his own and got dressed, the release said.
The officers asked the man if he needed help. He said he was homeless and that he had arrived at the hospital from the Sunland-Tujunga area with a long-term leg injury, and then left the hospital voluntarily, according to the release.
The man refused medical help, according to the statement, and the officers offered to take him wherever he wanted to go. He asked to go to the Sunland-Tujunga area but agreed to be taken to the North Hollywood train station, the statement said. Officers let him out in the 5200 block of Lankershim Boulevard, about a block from the station, after he ordered coffee.
As multiple overlapping agencies in Southern California face homelessness every day, accusations of “abandonment” to homeless people in another jurisdiction have occasionally arisen.
In 2018, then-Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino accused the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department of “abandoning” a homeless man in San Pedro after video showed the man exiting the patrol car. of an agent. The city of Los Angeles police and fire departments later responded to calls about the man.
A sheriff's official disputed Buscaino's account and said deputies took the man to a bus stop in San Pedro at his request.
At Friday's press conference, Krekorian criticized Burbank and other cities (which he did not name) for not doing enough for the homeless while Los Angeles spends billions of dollars. He also accused Burbank elected officials of attending Los Angeles City Planning Commission meetings to oppose permanent supportive housing projects in their district.
Krekorian also told reporters that in 2022, Burbank police left a man on the sidewalk outside a city-run homeless services center in his district. The video showed the man walking away, an aide to Krekorian told The Times.
“We are doing everything we can and many of our neighbors are not providing services to people who are homeless,” Krekorian said.
On Friday afternoon, before the Police Department released its statement, Burbank City Councilman Konstantine Anthony told the Times that the man in the video “obviously appears to be in distress.”
He added, “I hope we can work with Council President Krekorian's office to find a better way to meet the needs of our unhoused community in the future.”
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
