City Inspectors Ask Police Aid After Attack on Co-Worker

The warning was there when city building inspector Calvin O’Daniels showed up outside a Northridge home to investigate an improperly built fence.

“Never mind the dog, beware the owner,” stated a shiny brass plaque bolted to the front of the fence.

When O’Daniels routinely informed the homeowner that part of the fence violated the city safety code by being too tall, the resident punched out one of O’Daniels’ eyes, Los Angeles authorities said Thursday.

Now Asking for Police Escorts

The incident, which blinded O’Daniels in the right eye, has prompted city building and safety inspectors to ask for police escorts to potentially dangerous field inspections. It could also lead to the purchase of emergency radios for hundreds of city safety investigators, officials said.

The Northridge homeowner, Samuel D. Duran, 40, was arrested after the May 11 incident. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday on felony charges of mayhem and assault with a deadly weapon, court officials said.

City building and safety administrators said the attack on O’Daniels is unprecedented. About 700 inspectors and investigators work for that department and other agencies such as the public works and harbor departments.

They said O’Daniels was sent to the home on Community Street to investigate complaints about Duran’s fence. Neighbors contended that a six-foot-high portion of it was a safety hazard because it blocked the view of motorists using a nearby driveway.

“I told him how he could lower the fence to 3 1/2 feet or move it back from the sidewalk to bring it in compliance with the code,” said O’Daniels, 62.

“He was a little antagonistic. He said he wasn’t going to fix it because there were other fences in the neighborhood the same way. I thought he was just blowing off steam.”

O’Daniels said Duran pounced on him when he turned to walk to his truck, which was parked a few steps from the fence.

“He hit me with his fist and I couldn’t see,” O’Daniels said. “He kept pounding me with his fist, and he knocked me off the curb. I had loafers on and they fell off. He picked one of the shoes up and hit me with it.”

O’Daniels said he staggered free and saw Duran rip up the city’s complaint file, which dropped to the ground when he was first hit.

Wiping blood from his eyes, O’Daniels drove himself a mile to the emergency room of Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Doctors were unable, in five hours of surgery, to save O’Daniels’ battered right eye. During a nine-day hospital stay, he underwent plastic surgery for other facial injuries.

Duran, described by police as unemployed, was not home Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

City officials said the attack has jarred the inspection staff, which routinely faces irate property owners while investigating alleged building or safety violations.

“All the inspectors are a little edgy,” said Tim Taylor, city Building and Safety Department manager for the San Fernando Valley. Taylor described O’Daniels as “a polite gentleman” who would not have provoked an attack.

Inspectors are now talking of teaming up on potentially dangerous calls, said Tim Lukasiewicz, O’Daniels’ boss at the department’s Van Nuys office. “We’re now calling in the police for backup for cases that could be violent,” Lukasiewicz said.

John Kennedy, a Van Nuys-based building and safety investigator and a co-worker of O’Daniels, was joined by other inspectors and police for a recent inspection of a Chatsworth construction site where shots reportedly had been fired.

“They sent out two police cars and they went in with us,” Kennedy said. “It went fine, except that a nasty dog chased one of the inspectors,” Kennedy said.

“I don’t know what else can be done,” he said. “We can’t arm ourselves.”

Won’t Arm Inspectors

The city inspectors’ union, the Municipal Construction Inspection Assn., plans to discuss the safety issue at its June meeting, said H. N. Lee, president of the group.

“There is no thought of arming the men from the association’s standpoint,” Lee said. “Our people are inspectors, not police officers.”

Lee said increasing reports of building-code violations indicate that “people are more inclined to try to get away with something . . . there’s less regard for the law. I think the association and inspectors are getting a little concerned that things are starting to deteriorate.”

Frank V. Kroeger, general manager of the city Building and Safety Department, said officials are now “well on the way to providing radios for everyone” on the inspection staff. The walkie-talkies could be used by inspectors to call for emergency help.

“I think there’s an increasingly hazardous condition for our inspectors in the field,” he said. “It presents a continuing threat to them. We’re reviewing our policies and procedures at this moment to prevent this type of situation from recurring.”

Councilman Bernson Reacts

Kroeger said the unprovoked nature of the attack on O’Daniels, however, suggests that there is no way of predicting when an assault will occur.

Northridge-area City Councilman Hal Bernson, whose office had received one of the complaints that triggered O’Daniels’ fence inspection, said he has personally asked Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner to fully prosecute Duran in the case. Bernson said he also has asked City Atty. James K. Hahn to take steps to force Duran to lower his fence.

O’Daniels, meanwhile, said his immediate concern is to learn to see out of his one good eye.

“My doctor confirmed yesterday it’s completely gone,” he said of the other eye. “I have to live with it. But it’s going to limit my retirement. I had wanted to do other things.”

He had hoped to start a retirement career in computer repair, which requires precise visual skills.

“My wife’s devastated. We’d made so many plans. Now I don’t know what I’ll do.”