Antonovich

In his position as County Mayor, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich was encouraged today by his fellow board members to write a letter to the governor asking him to take appropriate action and stop the transfer of a perceived dangerous prisoner who is headed for Olive View-UCLA Medical Center on Friday.

According to Antonovich’s spokesman, Tony Bell, the board approved authorizing county counsel and the CEO to move forward with legal remedies and identifying an author for state legislation to prevent the release of potentially dangerous prisoners.

Olive View’s psychiatric unit is not staffed or designed to manage violent criminals and the clinical managers have expressed concern for patient and staff safety.  Under the state’s AB 109 realignment plan, only low-level prisoners subject to parole and not deemed to be a mentally disordered offender can be assigned to county supervision.

The inmate in question has a variety of dangerous prior offenses in his history. including violent felonies, assault on a peace officer, robbery, prisoner in possession of a weapon, arson, arrests for rape, in concert with force and violence, assault to commit rape, indecent exposure and sexual battery.

Bell said that the Supervisors’ goal is to get stricter control on the type and classification of inmates released into county custody or parole/probation supervision.