LOS ANGELES (KABC) — The Los Angeles Police Department has launched an investigation after two bodies initially went undiscovered by officers responding to 911 calls in separate incidents.
Officers who were dispatched to homes in the San Fernando Valley did not locate the bodies because they did not go inside.
The grim discoveries were later made at the two residences — one in Valley Village, the other in Woodland Hills.
The bodies were found hours — and in one case — days after 911 calls were placed.
With two people murdered and one killer still on the loose the LAPD is facing a lot of questions.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell addressed the case at this week’s police commission meeting.
“Officers responded to a radio call of an assault with a deadly weapon in progress. They did not hear or see any signs of disturbance. They weren’t able to make contact with anyone inside, so the officers cleared from the location,” McDonnell said.
He says officers were called back to the Van Nuys apartment building two days later to investigate a break-in at a vacant unit right next door to the original call.
The next day, a neighbor requested a welfare check at the scene of the original call, and that is when officers found Menashe Hidra’s body.
He had been murdered.
That very same day, LAPD discovered another murder victim in Woodland Hills.
Aleksandre Modebadze, 47, was found beaten in his home on De La Osa Street near Topanga Canyon Boulevard. He eventually died from his injuries.
In this case, officers had been called hours earlier.
“The caller had reported an unknown suspect assaulting her husband, but the line disconnected during the call. When officers arrived at the location, there were no obvious signs of a disturbance. No one answered the door or callbacks, and no additional information was available from the Communications Division. Officers cleared the scene,” McDonnell said.
It was only after another 911 call, nearly six hours later, that the officers found Modebadze dying.
“Making that decision to walk away is extraordinarily difficult,” former San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.
He says a case like this is rare, let alone two of them in one day.
LAPD has opened separate administrative investigations into the officers’ responses.
Burguan says those probes can often rely on hindsight, but are necessary.
Officers out in the field are left to decide whether or not to force their way into a home.
“When you arrive on scene, you rely on your senses. What you see and what you hear and what’s evidence. You’ve got to make a judgment call,” Burguan said.
Meanwhile, LAPD says they arrested three people for the Woodland Hill murder, but they are still looking for the suspect in the Van Nuys murder.
They believe the suspect broke into the apartment complex through a skylight and then jumped from one balcony to the victim’s balcony.
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