LA Luxury Apartment Inferno Hits Homeless Hardest
Thanks, big government.
Last week, traffic on two Los Angeles freeways came to a halt as fire crews responded to a massive inferno that incinerated a downtown luxury apartment complex under construction.
There is currently no cause that has been officially determined by arson investigators. The best lead in this case may be two men who were captured on video near the scene, in recordings taken shortly after the fire ignited.
Investigators asked for the public’s help Monday to identify two men seen on surveillance video taken the day of the massive apartment fire in downtown L.A. last week.
Two men authorities say are potential witnesses are seen in surveillance video walking in the area of the fire, which caused tens of millions of dollars in damage Dec. 8 to the seven-story Da Vinci Complex, 906 N. Fremont Ave..
The two individuals are not considered suspects or persons of interest, and investigators would like to interview them because they were in the area of the fire, officials said.
One edited video apparently shows a man in a black jacket, black pants and a black and white baseball cap grabbing at the fence around the apartment complex as it burned before firefighters pull him away from the fence, KNX 1070’s Claudia Peschiutta reports.
…A second video shows a different man, wearing a football jersey with the number 21, a backpack and a baseball cap walking by the area.
A CBS Local video reviews the details as they are known:
As a reminder, the investigators have a hotline number — (213) 893-9850 — and urge tipsters to call in with any information relevant to this event.
Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times offers an intriguing testament to the real state of the economy in a report about the fire’s impact on the local homeless community.
…Residents say that during the last year they’ve seen downtown homeless encampments sprout like mushrooms after a rainstorm. But the people inside remained largely invisible, bursting into public view last week with the ferocious Da Vinci apartment fire, which broke out steps away from a dozen people clumped in a shantytown under a freeway overpass.
lRelated Da Vinci fire poses tough puzzle for investigatorsThere was no Red Cross center, clothes or aid for these homeless people, as there might have been if they lived indoors. Los Angeles City Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Butler said that authorities gladly would have helped but that the homeless people “self-evacuated.”
Rows of shopping carts, mattresses, canned food and two cats were impounded as part of the fire investigation; arson is suspected. The homeless people’s belongings were released early Friday, and the owners began trickling back.
“Hopefully, they will repopulate,” Butler said.
Given the trajectory of economic and regulatory policies implemented by Washington and Sacramento, they will not only repopulate, but there will be even more homeless to join the ranks.
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Comments
“Hopefully, they will repopulate,” [Los Angeles City Assistant Fire Chief] Butler said.
I hope that stands for a long time as the strangest thing any city official has ever said…
Cripes…!!!
So now they require people to wear shirts with their I.Q. printed on them? This is great. With the backwards baseball hat you still had to estimate how low their I.Q. was. Now you know for sure not to get in line behind them at the cashier stand.
My experience is the worst people to get behind in the checkout line are those pride themselves on being shrewd and insist on checking every item as scanned against the weekly flyer. That doubles the time it takes the cashier to ring them up. Then if there is a 1 cent per pound difference in the 5 lb tube of ground beef they call the manager in for a price adjustment, wasting another ten minutes. Finally comes the argument why the sale price for the regular frozen apple pie doesn’t also apply to the deep dish frozen apple pie. They knowingly keep ten people waiting in line for half an hour in order to save 25 cents at the most.
If you’re that annoyed with them, why don’t you give them the difference between what they’ve been charged and what they think they should be? That amount may not be worth anything to you, but it is to them.
OK, OK. I won’t even THINK about the deep dish pie from now on.
Sheesh… Hating on Scotsmen!
Homelessness is now the fault of the GOVERNMENT. Right.
I have dealt with the homeless for decades. Allow me to clear up some common misconceptions.
In the first place, there are two main types of homeless people. The first is the short-term homeless. These are people who have undergone a reversal of economic fortune. As a result they lose they residence and often the economic resources to secure a new one. There are usually a number of government agencies and programs as well as many private entities which will provide short term assistance to such people. In some cases, these people, either through ignorance or pride do not take advantage of existing services. These people are usually working and providing for their own up keep in a short time.
Then you have the chronic homeless. These people usually suffer from severe mental problems and/or severe alcohol, drug and other chemical related problems. For these reasons, they are not capable of providing for their own up keep for long. For these people, there are also a variety of both public or private agencies and organizations to provide support. However, these people rarely take advantage of such support organizations, because those organizations require standards of behavior [no alcohol, drugs, fighting, sexual encounters, theft, etc.] within the facilities. Not wishing, or being unable, to abide by the rules, these people end up living on the streets. This leads to a whole slew of problems for the surrounding community, such as public health concerns, crime, disturbance of tranquility, etc.
And, to top it all off, the services provided for the homeless cost the rest of society cost the rest of society an enormous amount of money.