Category: Public Safety

Hall of Justice: stately ruin no more

Downtown L.A.’s historic Hall of Justice, damaged in the Northridge quake, is set to reopen.

After a $231-million renovation that spanned a decade, the Hall of Justice — site of Charles Manson’s trial and Marilyn Monroe’s autopsy — will be rededicated Wednesday as the new headquarters of the sheriff and district attorney.

The Beaux Arts landmark, built in 1925 and red-tagged in 1994 because of damage from the Northridge earthquake, has been transformed into a modern-day office building that celebrates its storied past.

“I am thrilled to see this architectural gem restored,” said District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who will move in around December or January. “Although it’s no longer a courthouse, it still will be a place where justice is served.”

Located on 211 W. Temple Street, the hall has been an integral part of Los Angeles’ history and downtown skyline for almost a century.

Designed by Allied Architects in the Italian Renaissance style, it was the first building in the nation to consolidate law enforcement facilities under one roof. The sheriff, district attorney, coroner, public defender and even tax collector have all, at one time or another, maintained operations there.

The 14-story, 550,000 sq. ft. high-rise also had 17 courthouses and 750 cramped jail cells that housed as many as 2,600 inmates at a time.

Aside from Charles Manson, the hall’s most notorious occupants were Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert “Bobby” Kennedy; mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, and “Nightstalker” serial killer Richard Ramirez.

Daredevil Evel Knievel staged a grand exit from the hall after serving time for assault. He ordered about 20 limousines to pick him up, along with every other inmate released on the same day.

One of the Hall of Justice’s original wrought iron staircases.

The famous and infamous were not relegated only to the jail cells and courtrooms. Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy’s remains were once examined on slabs in the autopsy suites.

When the Northridge earthquake struck in 1994, the hall itself almost became history. With rows and rows of jail cells with steel bars on the uppermost floors, the building was top heavy, so it twisted violently during the magnitude 6.7 temblor. The foundation survived unscathed but the interior walls were rendered unstable, potentially collapsing on people.

The Sheriff’s Department moved to leased offices in Monterey Park and the hall was left to molder until 2004, when the Board of Supervisors voted to authorize its renovation—as long as it was “cost-neutral”—at the urging of then-Sheriff Lee Baca.

LASD Facilities Director Gary Tse said Baca fervently believed the hall was the department’s rightful headquarters.  Baca, Tse said, “wanted the department to ‘go home’ — that was how he phrased it.”

Baca, however, retired early this year amid scandals over brutality in the jails and the indictment of more than a dozen deputies. Now his successor, who’ll be elected Nov. 4, will be based at the hall.

County Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka calculated that the cost of issuing bonds for the renovation could be offset by savings from private leases that agencies would no longer have to pay after moving into the hall.

“The combined annual lease savings from the Sheriff, DA and CEO lease terminations total is $10 million,” he wrote in a report. “These saving will be applied toward the Hall of Justice financing payment costs.”

Contractors with AC Martin Partners and Clark Construction Group gutted the building and even sold the steel from the jail cells to a recycler for about $500,000.

They also merged a couple of floors to leave only 12 stories with 300,000 sq. ft. of usable space to be occupied by 1,600 workers from the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office.

(AC Martin Partners’s website has architectural drawings of the hall’s interior design. Clark Construction’s website has photos of the demolition and renovation. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s website also checked in on the renovation’s progress, with this story and photo gallery. )

The seismic retrofit included reinforcing the building’s four corners with 1,000 tons of rebar, prompting Tse to say the hall is “now probably one of the safest buildings in L.A.” Workers also outfitted the building with state-of-the art mechanical, electrical, plumbing and data systems, and — for the first time — centralized heating and air-conditioning. They even built a bioswale into the landscape to collect and filter water seeping into the aquifer.

Architect Ryan Kristan, a consultant of the county Department of Public Works, was excited about using modern technology to revive an old building he remembers seeing in a black-and-white rerun of the television classic “I Love Lucy.”

“The demolition was loud and messy and very destructive, but once we started putting walls up and modern utilities in, the building felt like it was coming alive,” Kristan said. “And when we turned on the air-conditioning, it was as though the building was breathing again.”

Other new additions include a 1,000-space parking garage erected next to the hall, alongside the 101 Freeway, and a 12-foot-tall bronze statue of Lady Justice to be installed at the main plaza next month.

The county hired conservationists to make sure the renovation did not do away with “character defining” features that made the hall eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

They restored the grand lobby to its former glory, complete with marble columns and gilded ceilings from which hung ornate chandeliers, each weighing about 700 lbs. They power-washed the facade’s Sierra white granite, which had turned a dirty gray, using water infused with miniscule glass beads. The stone now gleams like those at Los Angeles City Hall, built in 1928 — after all, they came from the same quarry.  Also preserved were the terra cotta sculptures that embellished the granite. Most of the original windows, doorways with transoms and staircases with wrought iron balusters have also been retained.

“They don’t build buildings like this anymore,” Michael Samsing, who works in asset planning and strategy for the county CEO, said while admiring the antique elevator cabs, now attached to modern mechanisms with digital displays that transport occupants directly to the floor of their choice.

The cell block that once housed Manson and Sirhan has been preserved as part of an historical exhibit. It had to be taken apart piece by piece, and then painstakingly reassembled several floors below its original location.

County Department of Public Works senior capital project manager Zohreh Kabiri said renovating the hall is “way more complicated than starting a building from scratch,” but a great honor.

“The most enjoyable part is to preserve history and not see this building be demolished,” she said. “This is a historic landmark and being part of the team to restore it for future generations is something to be very proud of.”

Sheriff’s facility director Gary Tse, left, and CEO analyst Michael Samsing examine a property map.

The cell block that once held killer Charles Manson has been preserved as a historical exhibit.

The grand lobby’s original elevators are now powered by hidden, modern mechanisms.

After painstaking restoration, the grand lobby now looks like it did when built in 1925.

Posted 10/2/14

From boot camp to home base

A probation official at the old central command center, where the camp’s open dorms were supervised.

When bulldozers rumble into Camp Vernon Kilpatrick in Malibu, they will not only demolish an obsolete juvenile corrections facility but make way for an innovative approach to rehabilitating delinquent youths.

The Los Angeles County Probation Department is turning away from traditional methods that focused on control and punishment. Instead, it’s gradually adopting a model that emphasizes mentoring and a sense of community.

“It’s about building relationships and trust,” said Sean Porter, a director with the department’s Residential Treatment Services Bureau.

“There’s a saying: (the youths) won’t care what we think until they think we care about them,” Porter added. “The more time we spend with the youths, and convey compassion and genuine interest in them, the more they’ll listen to us.”

On Friday, probation officials, along with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, will hold a ceremony to kick off the demolition of Camp Kilpatrick’s aging dormitories, classrooms and gym —only the kitchen and pool will be left intact — while plans for a modern facility are finalized. The project’s completion date is still to be determined.

Originally built as a barracks in 1962, Camp Kilpatrick had an institutional configuration, with bunk beds arranged in rows against cinderblock walls, exposed showers and toilets, and spaces designated for solitary confinement.

It was essentially a boot camp, and Porter believes such an approach tends to produce only short-term benefits

“It’s temporary,” he said. “Unless you change the way the youths think, you’re not going to change the way they behave.”

The movie Gridiron Gang was based on Camp Kilpatrick’s coach and football team.

Probation Chief Jerry Powers is determined to reform the system by emulating some of the techniques used by Missouri’s Division of Youth Services.

The so-called Missouri Model puts youths in small groups with a more home-like—as opposed to jail-like—environment, supervised closely by supportive probation officers, social workers, teachers, psychologists and other professionals.

The approach has dramatically lowered juvenile recidivism rates in Missouri, and jurisdictions in New York, New Mexico, Washington D.C. and California’s Santa Clara County have created their own versions of it.

Powers’ $48-million vision for Camp Kilpatrick calls for tearing down the dilapidated dormitories and building cottages for “core groups” of 8-12 youths.

They would attend classes, eat meals, and engage in counseling sessions and other activities together. The cottages would be furnished with comfortable beds and other amenities, and have lots of natural light and fresh air.

In addition, there would be an on-site doctor’s clinic, daily nursing services and extended mental health clinician coverage—all unique to the Los Angeles Model.

Powers said the goal is to help the youths feel secure, while developing a sense of responsibility, accountability and community.

“Aligning the new facility with new treatment and educational approaches will translate to reduced recidivism, increased academic achievement, and better employment opportunities,” he wrote in a letter to the Board of Supervisors in May.

To date, the board has approved a $41-million budget for the project, about three-quarters of which has been raised through state grants.

Angela Chung, a policy associate with the nonprofit advocacy group Children’s Defense Fund, is excited about the proposed changes.

“I think this is a chance for Los Angeles to be ahead of the curve and move toward a more healing model,” she said.

Porter said if core groups are like a sports team—with their probation officer acting as their coach—Camp Kilpatrick already has a track record of success.

Its winning football team inspired the movie Gridiron Gang, with Porter portrayed by actor/wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Its basketball team almost won a regional championship, while the soccer program has produced a league MVP.

“We’ve used sports to teach self-discipline and the value of hard work, and to develop self-esteem,” Porter said.

“When the youths walked out of the camp and back into their communities, their shoulders weren’t slumped down and their head wasn’t hanging because they were able to accomplish something, and they knew they could do more.”

The vacant Camp Kilpatrick will be razed and replaced with a modern facility and a change of philosophy.

Posted 9/11/14

Capturing money for women’s jail

The board moved to protect more than $100 million in state grants for a “women’s village” in Lancaster.

For months, problems inside Los Angeles County’s jail system for men have taken center stage at Board of Supervisors meetings. This week, it was the women’s turn.

Faced with the potential of loss of more than $100 million in state grants, the supervisors on Tuesday approved an 11^th-hour plan to shift the location of a proposed “women’s village” to Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster to free-up space at the current jail for women in Lynwood.

Initially, new beds for female inmates were planned for the Pitchess Detention Center in the Antelope Valley. But the project stalled because of real estate easement issues, prompting restless state officials to warn the county that it could lose its conditionally-awarded grants to other jurisdictions without swift action on an alternative.

According to L.A. County officials, the alternative turned out to be better than the original.

Substantial space opened up at Mira Loma after the federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement Bureau terminated its contract there, leaving behind detention beds and infrastructure that, for less money, would allow for more beds than at Pitchess—1,604 versus 1,156. The additional beds, according to the county’s Chief Executive Office, would be used to help inmates with mental health and substance abuse issues as well as to prepare the women for “reentry” into society.

“I think that L.A. County has an opportunity with this facility to design a national model for the treatment of female offenders,” said Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald, who oversees the department’s custody operations.

Currently, female inmates are packed into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, where capacity is at 160 percent, according to sheriff’s officials, who say most inmates are being released after serving just a fraction of their sentences, if any at all.

The Mira Loma plan is part of a much broader undertaking by the county to rethink inmate housing for the nation’s largest county jail system, including razing the archaic Men’s Central Jail, where allegations of violence by sheriff’s deputies has led to scores of reforms. Among other things, the Board of Supervisors has begun exploring the possibility of constructing a stand-alone facility for the incarceration and treatment of mentally ill inmates at a potential cost of more than $1 billion. On Tuesday, the board voted only to shift the site of the proposed “women’s village” to Mira Loma, not to approve its actual renovation.

The only supervisor to speak against the plan was Mark Ridley-Thomas. Despite the danger of losing more than $100 million in state funds, he said he wanted to approach jail construction “in a comprehensive manner rather than a piecemeal manner.”  

“All money ain’t good money in terms of where we think we should be headed,” Ridley-Thomas said of the grants.

But Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky called the board’s action a “no brainer” in light of the widely agreed upon need for new beds for female inmates. Yaroslavsky said that, if the county failed to act on the grant money now, state officials might reject requests for money down the road.

“My first question would be: ‘Well, you had money on the table. You didn’t pick it up. Why are you coming to us now?’” Yaroslavsky said, adding: “The logical extension of doing nothing is to do nothing. And doing nothing is not in our best interest from any point of view.”

The board’s vote was 4-0, with Ridley-Thomas abstaining.

Posted 10/24/13

Moving to fix a “broken” AB 109 system

A fatal stabbing on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame is latest high-profile crime allegedly committed by AB 109 inmates.

Since its passage by the state legislature in 2011, AB 109’s radical reshaping of California’s criminal justice landscape has presented one challenge after another for the people and institutions of Los Angeles County.

The law, triggering the controversial process known as “realignment,” transferred responsibility for post-release supervision of state inmates to California’s counties.

Thousands of former state inmates have flooded into Los Angeles County under the program. Although the crimes that landed them in state prison prior to their release were supposed to have been so-called “non-non-nons”—non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual offenses—these inmates often have an earlier record of far more serious crimes.

The fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old woman on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, allegedly committed by AB 109 inmate Dustin James Kinnear, a panhandler with a long history of criminal offenses and mental illness, is just the latest incident to spark widespread outrage.

Led by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the Board of Supervisors this week launched an intensive review of what happened from the time Kinnear was released by the state until the moment he encountered the victim, Christine Calderon of Lynwood, on Hollywood Boulevard on June 18. Supervisors also directed the county departments with the greatest AB 109 responsibilities—Probation, Mental Health, Public Health and Sheriff—“to determine whether current laws or procedures are adequate to protect against any of the possible gaps” in the AB 109 process.

“The system is broken. It needs to be fixed or it’s inevitable that there will be more Christine Calderons up and down the state of California,” Yaroslavsky said after the motion was adopted. “Common sense says that this man should never have been released as early as he was from prison, and should not have been released under AB 109 in the way he was.”

Calderon’s murder is the latest in a high-profile string of crimes allegedly committed in L.A. County by AB 109 inmates.

Inmates released by the state who went on to allegedly commit heinous crimes in Los Angeles County include Ka Pasasouk , the accused gunman in last year’s quadruple homicide in Northridge, and Tobias Dustin Summers, arrested and charged with the kidnapping of a 10-year-old Northridge girl in March.

An analysis of the first year of AB 109 releases in the county, reported on Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s website, found that more than 30% of the 11,000 inmates placed under county supervision during the year were rearrested for crimes including 16 murders, 23 attempted murders and 205 robberies, along with other less serious crimes.

Officials have emphasized that AB 109 is not an early release program, and say that the inmates would have been released from custody and into their home counties in any case, where they could have committed the same crimes regardless of whether they were being supervised by state or county authorities.

Yaroslavsky, who has long voiced concerns about the program, said that, like it or not, AB 109 inmates will continue to come under L.A. County’s supervision so it’s essential to find ways to improve the process going forward. Among other things, he said, detailed and meaningful mental health information must be provided to the county early enough so informed decisions can be made to protect public safety.

“Locally, we have to make sure that we’re doing everything we can and that people aren’t falling through the cracks when they do become our responsibility,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’ve got to know what went wrong in order for us to avoid this tragic outcome in the future.”

Posted 6/27/13

Hall of Justice gets the lead out

Inside the scaffolding-clad Hall of Justice, a massive lead paint clean-up is underway. Photo/Clark Construction

Los Angeles County’s legendary Hall of Justice has had its share of dangerous inhabitants over the years. Now you can add one more to the list: lead-based paint.

The 1920s-era red oxide paint, containing as much as 39% lead, was found when construction workers last summer uncovered painted steel beams that had previously been encased in concrete. Testing on the steel and surrounding concrete revealed higher-than-anticipated lead concentrations in both.

This week, the Board of Supervisors approved an ambitious, $6.45 million abatement effort that will require lead removal in more than 15,000 locations throughout the hall, which, since opening in 1925, has played host to some of Los Angeles’ most notorious figures, including Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and Bugsy Siegel.

The unexpected discovery of the lead-painted structural steel came as workers were preparing to begin seismic reinforcement work on the imposing downtown structure, which has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

“Absolutely, it’s a surprise,” said Greg Zinberg, project executive with Clark Construction, the contractor for the renovation. “We’ve had to re-strategize about how we’re approaching the project…We’re talking about thousands of hours of work.”

Areas within the building are being cordoned off to contain lead dust and workers must wear protective gear, including respirators and special suits, as they go about their tasks. A literal top-to-bottom scrubbing will be required to decontaminate the structure.

Even so, the project remains on schedule to finish up next year, with county departments, including the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s office, still on track to move in by early 2015. The lead abatement work itself is expected to wrap up by this October.

The funding for the lead removal comes from $16.9 million set aside in the project budget to cover unanticipated changes that crop up during the construction process. The overall budget for the project, which is being financed by long-term bonds, is $231.7 million.

This is not the building’s first brush with lead problems. When open fire escapes on two sides of the building were set to be cleaned out as part of the renovation project, workers found 4½-foot-high heaps of pigeon droppings on just about every floor, said James Kearns, the Public Works division head whose team is overseeing the project. Testing on the pigeon guano found lead as well as the more expected pathogens, resulting in an earlier $36,415 abatement effort.

The pigeons haven’t spared the surface of the building, either. Behind scaffolding, cleaning is now underway to restore the hall’s dingy grey exterior to its original white—the same color as nearby Los Angeles City Hall. But getting it done meant encountering decades-old droppings amid the colonnade of Romanesque columns along the building’s upper floors—“an interesting discovery,” as project executive Zinberg puts it.

As for the lead abatement, the latest twist in long-running efforts to bring the Hall of Justice back to life, workers are taking it all in stride. “Right now, we’re moving along and getting through it,” said Kearns, of Public Works. “It’s not an easy job but it’s all under control.”

For a look inside the building during an earlier phase in the construction process, click here.

Lead paint on structural steel beams was found under concrete coating. Photo/Clark Construction

Posted 5/15/13