The body lay unsecured for more than 10 hours while burglars twice picked through the dead man’s room.
So goes the the story circulating among veterans living on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles.
Residents say their reports of the theft — like their complaints of other crimes — go unheeded because their 2-year-old apartment building lies in a law enforcement no man’s land where no police agency has the power or resources to investigate and prosecute run-of-the-mill crime.
The unincorporated island is surrounded by the city of Los Angeles but outside the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department. Technically, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department polices its 388 acres, but the distant West Hollywood Station rarely responds to calls, if ever. The VA Police Department, which is mostly tasked with providing security at the hospital, is prohibited by an obscure federal rule from being “deputized” to enforce state law.