Marc Haefele's comparison of Thursday's Drew Street demolition to something out of the Middle Ages struck a nerve in the City Attorney's office, which sent over a response:

The February 6, 2009, "Drew Street Demo" letter to the Times editor displays ignorance of both the facts and the legal process upon which the demolition of the Avenues Gang headquarters in Glassell Park was based. In fact, the demolition was actually the culmination of a series of governmental actions taken over a period of four years to abate the continuing criminal gang activity at this property.

The property was first referred to the City Attorney's Office in 2004 as a location plagued with violent gang crime and narcotics trafficking. In September 2005, a narcotics abatement action was filed against the owners of the property and an Avenues gang leader, Nicholas Real. After a year of litigation, the City Attorney obtained a $75,000 money judgment and a Superior Court order that the property be closed for a year if the owners did not sell it to a bona fide purchaser not affiliated with a gang. This attempt at rehabilitation was stymied when the owners failed to sell the property within the prescribed time period, resulting in the property being boarded up by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, again, per Court order. In 2007, the City Attorney initiated collection procedures for the money judgment and the property was scheduled for a sheriff's sale. Then, at the eleventh hour, the defendants appeared with a check for $84,826.56 and the sheriff's sale was canceled.

Following the closure, the property was breached three times. In 2008, the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners held a public hearing, declared the property a public nuisance, and ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the owners were given an additional six months to rehabilitate the property and restore it to productive use. The owners failed to comply with Building and Safety orders and abandoned their rehabilitation efforts. The Department of Building and Safety reinstated their demolition order and the house was demolished on February 4, 2009.

From the very inception of this case, the property owners had the option of selling the house to persons not associated with the Avenues Gang. In fact, the Court order obtained by the City Attorney encouraged that result. Demolition was a last resort only, and was based on the owners' refusal to maintain the property free of criminal activity and subsequent failure to either sell or rehabilitate it.

The City has never owned this property. But, as a result of the demolition, the City now has the authority to place a lien on the property and pursue a judicial foreclosure action.

In our court filings, our prosecutors demonstrated how this property had, over the past 20 years, been not only a headquarters of the Avenues criminal street gang but also the very symbol of the terrifying grip that the gang had over this neighborhood. Today, because of the resolute pursuit of the legal process by the City Attorney, that symbol is no more.

Sincerely,

Mary Clare Molidor
Senior Assistant City Attorney
Deputy Chief, Safe Neighborhoods Division
Criminal and Special Litigation Branch
Office of Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo