Attack on City Inspector Sparks Concerns

The warning was there when Los Angeles city building inspector Calvin O’Daniels showed up outside a Northridge home.

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

When O’Daniels routinely informed the home’s owner that part of the fence violated the city Safety Code by being too tall, the resident attacked O’Daniels, striking him several times in the face, authorities said.

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

At the same time, however, authorities admit they couldn’t have foretold the violence that would erupt from O’Daniels’ visit, and they recognize how difficult it can be to predict such altercations.

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

City building and safety administrators said the attack 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 section 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,” O’Daniels, 62, recalled. “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.

“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 drove himself a mile to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where doctors were unable to save his battered right eye.

City officials said the attack has jarred the inspection staff.

“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, who is 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.

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.

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

Duran, described by police as unemployed, could not be reached for comment.

O’Daniels, meantime, said his immediate concern is to learn to see well with just one eye.