The Brief

When landlords in Southern California want to evict their tenants, they often hire Dennis Block. His law firm, Dennis P. Block and Associates, describes itself as the state’s “leading eviction law firm.”

Block once reportedly called himself, “A man who has evicted more tenants than any other human being on the planet Earth.”

But in one recent eviction case, Block didn’t just lose. His firm was also sanctioned for submitting a court filing a judge said was “rife with inaccurate and false statements.”

At first glance, the filing from April looks credible. It’s properly formatted. Block’s signature at the bottom lends a stamp of authority. Case citations are provided to bolster Block’s argument for why the tenant should be evicted.

But when L.A. Superior Court Judge Ian Fusselman took a closer look, he spotted a major problem. Two of the cases cited in the brief were not real. Others had nothing to do with eviction law, the judge said.

“This was an entire body of law that was fabricated,” Fusselman said during the sanction hearing. “It's difficult to understand how that happened.”

The court never got to the bottom of exactly how the filing was prepared. But six legal experts told LAist they could think of a likely explanation: misuse of a generative AI program.

These programs, the best known of which is ChatGPT, have come under increasing scrutiny in the legal profession. While some lawyers see potential for reducing costs to clients, experts agree that failing to check work produced by such tools is risky and unethical.

Law professors and malpractice attorneys who reviewed Block’s filing told us — based on the language used — that’s likely what happened in this case.

“I think it's virtually certain that the lawyer involved used some kind of [generative] artificial intelligence program to draft the brief,” said Russell Korobkin, a professor at UCLA School of Law who recently moderated a panel on AI in the legal profession.

Eviction is his ‘patriotic duty’

Eviction court cases center on a high-stakes question: Who gets to stay in their home, and who has to leave?

The outcomes for renters can be dire, in some cases leading to homelessness. It all unfolds in a court system that can move very quickly, with most tenants lacking access to an attorney.

In a 2007 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Block said evicting rent-controlled tenants was his “patriotic duty.”

Over the years, Block has distinguished his firm for its ability to handle large caseloads. His website says the firm has handled more than 200,000 evictions. In a 2018 court case, Block claimed his firm takes “upward of 500 unlawful detainer cases per month.”

At the same time, Block's firm has faced criticism from many tenant advocates, as well as some landlords. An LAist investigation of court records found Block or his firm have faced 12 lawsuits filed by clients alleging their cases were mishandled.

Some of the lawsuits were dismissed because they were filed too late. Clients generally have one year to file a malpractice complaint against their attorney.

Other lawsuits were resolved without going to trial. In one 2018 case that did go to trial, a judge found Block’s firm “acted negligently and fell below the standard of care,” but ruled the landlord failed to show the negligence caused any provable damage.

Legal experts told us they thought the filing from Block’s firm that led to sanctions bears striking similarities to a brief prepared by a New York attorney who admitted in May to using ChatGPT. It was the first widely reported example of an attorney misusing ChatGPT since the tool debuted last year.

Like the New York filing, Block’s brief falls apart upon checking the case citations. It cited 51 Scott Street, LLC v. Sheehan (2019) and Cole v. Stevenson (1998), both of which are fictitious, according to the judge.

Block’s firm cited Cole v. Stevenson (1998) and 51 Scott Street, LLC v. Sheehan (2019) in a recent court filing. Neither case is real.

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Case citations with ‘no basis in reality’

“This filing has the usual hallmarks of what's known as a hallucination,” said Jonathan Choi, a professor at USC Gould School of Law who reviewed the brief at LAist’s request.

Hallucinations are a known problem in which programs like ChatGPT “tend to produce things that look convincing, but actually have no basis in reality,” he said.

Chris Hoofnagle, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, said the problem stems from how platforms like ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs, for short) work.

Based on a user’s prompt, they mine vast troves of data to predict words that should come next in a sentence. They can produce stunningly detailed documents full of words seemingly written by a human. But often those words bear no relation to the truth.

“LLMs can generate fake information that basically is what you want to believe,” Hoofnagle said. “LLMs say these things in such an unqualified and confident way that they're convincing.”

However the filing was created, legal ethicists said submitting fake case law violates a core duty in the legal profession.

“Any time you cite a case and a holding to the court, it has to be accurate,” said Deborah Wolfe, a San Diego malpractice attorney. “That's your obligation. I don't care how busy you are.”

And some legal experts told us the fact that defendants often represent themselves in venues like eviction court just heightens concerns about accountability.

Ari Waldman, a UC Irvine School of Law professor, said tools like ChatGPT — if left unchecked — could lead to miscarriages of justice.

“Someone is going to be thrown out on the street because a lawyer couldn't bother doing research on their own,” Waldman said. “If that's where our legal system is heading, we're all in trouble.”

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

Block did not agree to an interview with LAist. In an email responding to our requests for comment, he wrote, “It is apparent that you are simply intent on publishing a ‘hit piece’ against myself and my firm.”

Block said his firm “has been practicing for over 40 years and is the preeminent landlord/tenant law firm in Southern California. Needless to say, landlords rely on my firm to protect their interests as landlords and property owners.”

Block continued, “I will and cannot discuss matters that are confidential nor will I engage in a discussion where the sole objective is to simply smear my or my firm's name.”

Block’s firm submitted the filing that cited fake court cases in April 2023 as part of a seemingly routine eviction case. His firm’s client said their tenant should be evicted over non-payment of rent. The tenant said their rent had been raised illegally. The court was left to sort it all out.

According to a 2019 report commissioned by the L.A. Right To Counsel Coalition, 97% of L.A. County renters lacked an attorney in unsealed eviction proceedings, while 88% of landlords had legal representation.

In this case, the tenant was represented. Lydia Nicholson, an attorney with the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action, had asked the court to rule on the merits of the lawsuit without going to trial, basically arguing the landlord had no case. Block’s firm filed an opposition to that motion. All fairly standard procedure. Until Nicholson sat down to read Block’s filing.

“I felt a little bit like I was completely misreading or misunderstanding what was happening,” Nicholson said in an interview. “It was one of the weirdest opposition briefs I have ever received.”

Court records show Fusselman also found the filing unusual. He scheduled a hearing to determine what repercussions Block’s firm should face. Block did not attend that hearing. One of his colleagues, attorney John Greenwood, showed up instead.

Fusselman began by asking Greenwood, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Greenwood replied, “I have to say there was a terrible failure in our office. There's no excuse for it.”

Greenwood said the attorney at Block’s firm responsible for drafting the filing relied on “online research.” He said “she didn't check it,” and that she had since left the firm.

In a separate court filing, Block identified the attorney responsible for preparing the filing as a first-year lawyer admitted to the bar in November 2022. LAist reached out to her for this story, but she did not agree to an interview.

“We unfairly put her under a lot of pressure to get things out the door,” Greenwood said. “We don't want to throw her under the bus.”

During the sanction hearing, Nicholson, the attorney representing the tenant, asked why Block hadn’t shown up in court to explain what went wrong. After all, Block was the one who signed the fabricated filing, Nicholson noted.

“I agree with you that by signing the pleading, Dennis Block, the buck stops with him,” said Fusselman, the judge. “But I'm satisfied that Mr. Greenwood was the person who was actually responsible for reviewing the document.”

Fusselman did not respond to a request for comment from LAist.

Concluding that Block’s filing appeared “to be frivolous,” Fusselman threw out the landlord’s lawsuit, allowing the tenant to remain in their home. The underlying eviction case is now sealed, a common practice in California when tenants prevail in court. Fusselman sanctioned Block’s firm for violating a section of California’s Business and Professions Code and ordered the firm to pay $999 to Nicholson’s firm.

Block wrote in a declaration to the court, “There was never an intent to mislead the court and I do apologize to the court and opposing counsel.”

The exterior of the Los Angeles Superior Court's Stanley Mosk courthouse, where many L.A. eviction cases are handled, is seen in 2004.

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‘More like a warning than an actual punishment’

By keeping the sanction just under $1,000, Fusselman allowed Block’s firm to avoid a requirement to report the violation to the state bar for further investigation and possible disciplinary action.

Erika Doherty, program director for the California State Bar's Office of Professional Competence, said it’s possible opposing counsel may have filed a complaint, but any ongoing investigation would remain confidential. 

Some L.A. tenant attorneys who often face Block’s firm in court think he got off easy.

“When a judge purposely keeps it under $1,000 … it feels more like a warning than an actual punishment,” said Alisa Randell, an attorney with the pro bono law firm Public Counsel.

Tenant defense lawyers interviewed for this story told us they’ve never seen another filing from Block’s firm quite like this one. But they said they frequently see landlord attorneys cutting corners and submitting cases they believe have questionable merits.

Joshua Johnson, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said few tenants have the skills or training needed to spot these problems.

“That's why we stress that tenants must have attorneys to fight these cases,” Johnson said.

The ‘fast and furious’ world of eviction court 

Landlords file thousands of evictions in L.A. County every month. Court observers say the high volume and constant churn of eviction cases encourages slapdash work.

“The process itself is very oriented to this almost fast and furious style of case processing,” said Kyle Nelson, a policy analyst and researcher with the tenant rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. “Everybody is completely overwhelmed.”

Evictions plummeted early in the pandemic after state and local governments put new COVID-19 renter protections in place. But Nelson said L.A. County eviction filings are now back to pre-pandemic levels.

Proposals to provide tenants with free attorneys in eviction court are currently under consideration by L.A. city council members and L.A. County supervisors. Proponents argue a “right to counsel” would even the playing field for tenants in danger of losing their housing.

“You have a system that's supposed to be equitable, but it's not,” said Javier Beltran, deputy director of the L.A.-based Housing Rights Center.

Eviction court judges in L.A. often hear dozens of cases in a single day. They issue rulings in a matter of minutes, all while attorneys and onlookers shuffle in and out of the courtroom and chat in the wings. Tenants without attorneys regularly struggle to understand what’s going on. Most landlords rely on lawyers to secure them a favorable outcome in court.

Beltran believes Block’s firm uses that imbalance to their advantage.

“Which then allows [Block’s firm] to evict folks in large mass, which then exacerbates the homeless crisis,” Beltran said.

Given the large caseloads and emphasis on working quickly, attorneys are under a lot of pressure to find new ways of speeding up their work, said malpractice attorney Heather Rosing.

“Lawyers are really, really busy people,” Rosing said. “It becomes understandable that a lawyer would turn to a new and innovative research tool — or at least something the lawyer believes is a new and innovative research tool — in order to get to the answers more quickly.”

But even under those pressures, Rosing said, lawyers have a duty to tell the truth in court. And attorneys have a duty to supervise their staff.

A ‘strong advocate for people who own rental housing’

Block was admitted to practice law in California in 1976. His profile on the state bar’s website shows no record of disciplinary action.

In a past interview with LAist for a 2023 article, Block said that despite assumptions that all landlords are wealthy, many of his clients are “mom and pops” relying on a small number of units for their income.

In a recent interview with podcaster John Williams, Block described his childhood and successful career.

“I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with my mother and my sister,” Block said. “I now employ 26 attorneys. And I have a support staff — a total staff of 45 people — that are making their contributions to the government, paying their taxes. But somehow if you're big, if you're successful, then all of a sudden you're not revered by society. You're hated by society.”

Dennis Block discusses Southern California tenant protections in a video posted by the Apartment Owners Association of California on July 14, 2022.

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Block regularly discusses L.A.’s ever-evolving rental housing regulations in online Q&As hosted by various landlord advocacy groups. In a July 2022 video streamed by the Apartment Owners Association of California, Block likened a city of L.A. eviction regulation to “state-imposed slavery” on landlords.

Arguing that the city’s eviction rules blocked landlords from removing tenants, even if they wanted to get out of the rental business, he said, “It’s forced labor at the very minimum.”

Block’s championing of landlord rights has won him a reputation as “a very aggressive attorney,” according to Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA).

“He is a real strong advocate for people that own rental housing,” he said.

Yukelson said Block is known for helping protect landlords from tenant advocates, who Yukelson said can at times use underhanded tactics.

“Renters who don't comply with their lease agreements end up getting away with months of free rent, and oftentimes put owners in a position to pay out relocation fees,” Yukelson said. “In some cases, it's like extortion.”

Block advertises in AAGLA publications and appears in their webinars. Yukelson said over the years, he has heard from only a small number of landlords unhappy with Block’s services.

“If I was getting inundated with complaints about Dennis Block, then I wouldn't have him be associated with our association,” Yukelson said.

Common themes emerge in court records, online reviews

But some former Block clients have been less than satisfied.

An LAist review of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura county superior courts found that Block or his firm have faced 12 malpractice or negligence lawsuits since 2001.

In multiple cases, landlords alleged Block’s firm served their tenants notices to pay or quit — the first step toward an eviction — that failed to comply with legal requirements. Others alleged his firm made significant mistakes in routine court filings.

In 2011, one former landlord client alleged that after Block’s firm served his tenant a three-day notice to pay or quit, Block’s firm turned around and defended that same tenant against the eviction. According to court records, Block’s firm said they dropped the tenant after discovering the connection. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Former Block clients have also aired their grievances outside of court. About 64% of the reviews on his firm’s Yelp page were one-star ratings as of early October 2023. About 28% were five-star reviews. We should note that not all Yelp reviews are genuine. Yelp has taken steps in recent years to better vet and remove illegitimate reviews.

LAist interviewed Ali Khan, who wrote one of those scathing reviews. He said he hired Block’s firm in early 2021 to pursue an eviction against a tenant in his South L.A. duplex. Khan said the tenant began subletting rooms without his knowledge, including to someone who moved in with a dog in violation of a no-pets policy.

“[Block] told me that I had a case,” Khan said, “that people don't pay him for his good looks — they pay him to win cases.”

Khan said he was living in Maryland at the time. He said he didn’t know that L.A. city council members had voted to shield renters from evictions over unauthorized occupants and pets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Khan said Block’s firm failed to tell him how those protections could stall his case.

“They should have known the rules had changed,” said Khan, who was unsuccessful in court and ultimately paid the tenant to leave. “They were just taking me along for a ride so they could just continue to rack up the bill.”

A missed opportunity to settle

Other former clients of Block’s firm echoed Khan’s complaint about poor communication.

Tracey Adlai said she came to Block’s firm in an emotionally raw moment. Her father had just died, and her family was seeking help with evicting a tenant who refused to leave his Hollywood Hills condo.

“I hadn't had time to grieve,” Adlai said, “and then was pushed into this role of being a landlord.”

Tracey Adlai outside of the condo once owned by her late father in the Hollywood Hills.

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The eviction case ended up dragging on for nearly two years.

In an ongoing lawsuit against Block for alleged professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, Adlai and her brother allege Block’s firm failed to properly communicate a potential settlement offer from the tenant early in litigation.

The letter from the tenant’s attorney suggested the tenant might consider leaving in exchange for a relocation payment of $21,200. Adlai said Block’s firm should have sent this letter to her brother, the administrator of her father’s estate and the plaintiff in the eviction case. Adlai herself was not a party to the eviction.

But, Adlai said, Block’s firm only sent that letter in an email attachment to her. She was in communication with the firm as part of her brother’s lawsuit. She told LAist she didn’t notice the email until months later. No one from Block’s firm ever followed up or called about it, she said — and no one sent it to her brother, the firm’s actual client.

“If this could have been wrapped up before going to a trial, it would have saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Adlai said. The lawsuit claims more than $200,000 in damages, including legal fees, lost rent and other costs associated with maintaining the property while it was occupied by a non-paying tenant.

In a court filing responding to the negligence lawsuit, Block’s defense attorney Gary Starre wrote the complaint “is unintelligible and ambiguous.” He argued Adlai’s brother was Block’s client, not Adlai herself, and therefore she has no standing to sue. He also said it was filed one day after the one-year statute of limitations lapsed — which Adlai’s attorney disputes.

Adlai said despite more than $15,000 in legal fees paid to Block’s firm, she felt like none of the firm’s attorneys bothered to learn much about the eviction case — and none seemed to appreciate how important her father’s condo was to the family.

“We had to sell it to pay our legal fees,” said Adlai, who is currently renting a unit in the same building. “I always wanted this property. It was where my dad taught me about life.”

Adlai’s brother decided to drop Block’s firm and hire a different lawyer. The eviction case went to trial in September 2022. A jury decided the tenant had to leave her father’s condo. But after nearly two years of fighting, Adlai could no longer afford to move in.

A corner of Tracey Adlai's home, featuring a picture of her father and other family memorabilia.

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‘Failure to comply’

Other former clients told LAist that Block’s firm passed their cases from attorney to attorney, with lawyers at times coming to important court dates appearing unknowledgeable and unprepared.

“It was always a different person,” said Marie Frazier, an L.A. real estate agent who helped two of her former homebuyers with limited English skills pursue an eviction with Block’s firm.

“They just didn't seem professional,” said Frazier of Block’s firm. “Everything was very last minute.”

After seeking for more than six months to evict a non-paying tenant, the homeowners were hoping for resolution. Their trial was scheduled in May 2021. But on their day in court, Frazier said their attorney from Block’s firm, Marat Antonyan, wasn’t ready.

“Things seemed to go south pretty quickly when the attorney could not answer the judge’s questions about simple, basic stuff,” said Frazier, who was with the couple that day in the Stanley Mosk courthouse in downtown L.A.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge George Bird grilled Antonyan about why he failed to meet and confer with the tenant’s lawyer ahead of the trial.

“We have a different attorney checking the emails,” Antonyan said, according to an audio recording of the hearing. The defense “probably sent it to our office email, not to my email,” he said.

Antonyan did not respond to an email from LAist asking for comment. Former clients and tenant attorneys told LAist that Block’s firm tends to route messages through one central email address, which they believe worsens communication.

The judge pushed the trial back almost three months, saying, “It appears the case is not ready for trial because of the plaintiff’s failure to comply with the court rules … It is with a heavy heart that I continue these trials, given that the plaintiff has waited a very long time for their day in court.”

Frazier, the real estate agent trying to help her buyers, said the whole experience was “humiliating.” She said, “I just remember sinking into my chair.”

The homeowners eventually dropped the case. To this day, the tenant continues to occupy the property rent-free, Frazier said. And Block’s firm continues to bill the homeowners for past work.

“I don't think they did much work on it,” she said. “I don't understand why they just don't give up with the billing.”

Marketplace reporter Matt Levin contributed to this story.

Finding legal help

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. — The idea came to Danielle Boyer in a toy store. The inspiration? It was Tickle Me Elmo.

"Whenever you'd press his belly, he would talk, and he would teach you things," she said. "There are toys that teach us in English, but there aren't toys that teach us Anishinaabemowin. And I wanted that to be different."

Anishinaabemowin includes the Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe languages. Exact estimates vary, but there are fewer than 10,000 people in the U.S. who speak Anishinaabemowin. That number is around 25,000 in Canada. Some Native languages have just a few dozen fluent speakers, while others have none.

Boyer has seen how quickly language loss can happen. Her grandmother speaks Anishinaabemowin, but she is one of the last fluent speakers of their dialect.

"It is devastating to feel like your language could be lost," said Boyer, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. "You lose your culture, you lose a way to describe who you are."

U.S. Indian boarding schools played a major role in the loss of Indigenous languages. Children separated from their families were taught, sometimes violently, not to speak their native tongues, and many did not pass them on to their children.

Today, some Native youth are learning their languages in schools. But Boyer said many of them still aren't invested. "They see it as another homework assignment."

Boyer and Hoy work on some last-minute adjustments to his AI-powered SkoBot before presenting at his school's end-of-year showcase, called the STEAM Museum.

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That's why she invented the SkoBot. It's a customizable toy robot designed to get Indigenous children excited to learn their languages.

"I can say 'Hey SkoBot, what is bear?' And it will say, 'Bear is makwa, makwa,' and it'll repeat it, right? So I can say, 'What is crane?' It'll say, 'Crane is ajijaak, ajijaak.'"

SkoBots use a form of artificial intelligence to speak Indigenous languages, and they're small enough to mount on the user's shoulder. They sort of resemble mini R2-D2 droids, from Star Wars, except these robots are designed to look like woodland creatures and decorated in Native American florals.

Through a nonprofit she started when she was 18, Boyer, now 25, has mentored hundreds of Native American children across the country, teaching them to build SkoBots of their own. One of them is 12-year-old Holden Hoy in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

"I was already a big fan of robotics and how they work, how you can bring inanimate objects to life," he said. "And I'm Ojibwe, and so I've always wanted to save the Ojibwe language."

Hoy, a rising seventh-grader, showed off his design at an end-of-the-year science fair at his school, JKL Bahweting Anishinaabe School in Sault Ste. Marie. Like Boyer, he is a member of the Sault Tribe.

He programmed his SkoBot to answer three questions ahead of his presentation. One of them was, "What's your name," to which the robot would respond in Hoy's voice: "Aaniin, Hello. Sabe indizhinikaaz, Bahweting indoonjibaa. I was built by Holden Hoy. I will not gain sentience and take over the world. Or will I?"

Hoy named his SkoBot Sabe, which means Bigfoot in Anishinaabemowin. In Ojibwe culture, Bigfoot represents honesty, one of seven sacred teachings.

His classmates and their parents stopped by his booth to see Sabe in action. Boyer was there too, helping Hoy with his presentation.

"I'm very happy that people are actually coming to this booth," Hoy said. "I'm happy that they are learning things, and I'm really happy that I'm part of the Ojibwe."

Sabe has one eye, a sensor that detects movement and lets it know to start listening.

Hoy's Sabe, or Bigfoot, SkoBot on display (right), alongside three other SkoBots that Boyer brought with her to show off at the STEAM Museum. Each represents a specific animal: a wolf, turtle and bear. Hoy's SkoBot is 3D printed in light gray, and its face is adorned with a footprint surrounded by floral designs.

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"Basically, when it hears that one trigger word, it then plays a prerecorded audio file. So there isn't synthetic speech, there isn't any generative AI," said Boyer. "It's simply listening to what you're saying, identifying it and playing [audio files] that already exist."

That means the SkoBots will never make things up, often called AI hallucinations. Hoy said it's important not to use generative AI. "AI tends to falsify things a lot, not get things from trustworthy sources."

Boyer's goal isn't to replace interactions with real language speakers. Instead, it's to get kids interested in not only their languages, but in subjects like science, math and engineering as well. That includes getting them to think about how to use AI ethically.

"Artificial intelligence, especially when it's not created by Indigenous people, stands to do a lot of harm to our communities," she said. "When you are putting accurate information into these models … you're giving away sacred information to companies that don't have our best interests at heart."

And as chatbots have become more popular, Boyer said some people have turned to them to help them learn their languages. She's even seen large language models like ChatGPT invent fake words in Anishinaabemowin, which she said is dangerous. "If we're not learning our language correctly, we shouldn't learn it at all."

Jocelyn Hoy is Holden's mom. She's excited that her son is not only exposed to their culture, but he's eager to know more. She said he's even been teaching her new things.

"As someone who, at a time in my life, did not want to be identified as Native American … now as an adult, I cannot wait to learn more, and I think the SkoBots are going to help me and so many kids — so many people in general — learn their heritage and who they are."

Holden Hoy said that heritage and the language are inseparable: "The language is the culture!"

He added, "It is important to protect it, because it's some people's way of life. Generation after generation is based around this culture."

Edited by: Steve Drummond and Lauren Migaki
Visual design and development by: LA Johnson
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Murals depicting Korean drummers, dancers and historical figures were a large part of Dave Young Kim’s childhood in Koreatown.

At the time, the Korean American artist didn’t know what all of the imagery meant, but it left a lasting impression on him.

“We don’t learn culture via formal education. It’s all gleaned,” Kim said. “It’s just what we sense, and we feel a connection to it without actually knowing anything about it. It belongs to us, and it feels very familiar.”

Many of the murals Kim remembers from his childhood have since disappeared. With his latest mural at the Korean Resource Center, Kim hopes to bring some of that visual imagery back to the neighborhood.

Completed this summer, the mural is Kim’s first in Koreatown.

The mural shows a group of traditional Korean drummers moving beneath sweeping ribbons of color, with plum blossoms blooming across the bottom of the wall. Faint outlines of traditional Korean architecture appear in the background.

At the center of the mural is 풍물놀이 (pungmulnori), a traditional Korean folk performance that combines drumming, dance and acrobatics and has long been part of village festivals and celebrations.

A close-up view of artist Dave Young Kim’s mural at the Korean Resource Center in Koreatown. The work depicts traditional Korean drummers.

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For Kim, the project was a chance to reconnect the neighborhood with the kind of cultural imagery he says shaped his own understanding of identity growing up.

“It was important to me growing up, and for me to see myself through very purposeful art, very intentional art,” he said. “For my own formation and identity, I think it was very important. I’d like to do that for future generations.”

Kim, 46, who was born and raised in Koreatown, said the project felt different from his other murals because it was rooted in the community where he spent his childhood.

“The formative years of my life are here,” he said.

The project grew out of the Abbey Mural Prize, a national grant program that supports community-based public mural projects.

As part of the project, Kim partnered with the Koreatown Storytelling Program, which trains youth to interview community elders. Students interviewed residents at Durae Crenshaw House, an affordable senior housing complex and home to the Korean Resource Center, and shared transcripts with Kim as he developed the mural.

The architecture in the mural reflects the idea of home that emerged repeatedly in interviews with elders, Kim said.

“There were a lot of iterations of the mockups. The very initial ones were very, very, very rooted in the stories, the narratives from the elders,” Kim said.

The interviews also left an impression on Daisy Yeon, 17, one of the students who conducted them. She said participating in the project changed the way she thinks about Koreatown and its history.

Yeon said she believes traditional Korean imagery still has a place in a neighborhood that has changed rapidly in recent years.

“Personally, the way Koreatown has evolved in these few last years from the pandemic and the shift where people move into other Korean enclaves like Buena Park and Torrance, Koreatown is partly becoming a place of pop-up matcha spots, for example,” she said. “So I think it’s important for tradition to still be here.”

Seeing the finished mural was “a full-circle moment,” she said, after spending months interviewing elders whose stories became part of the artwork.

While researching Koreatown’s public art history, Kim learned many of the murals he saw as a kid grew out of cultural initiatives and public funding that no longer exist. He also discovered an earlier generation of Korean American muralists whose work once covered parts of Koreatown.

In 1993, artist Dong-In Park completed a mural of traditional Korean farmers’ dance in the Korean Community Center at 981 S. Western Ave.

He told the Los Angeles Times he hoped “the 1.5- and second-generation Korean kids” would not forget their language and history. Park, along with artists including Sonia Hahn and Kuk Chol Han, helped establish a tradition of public art celebrating Korean culture during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

An undated photo of Dong-In Park’s mural depicting a farmers band playing music and dancing to provide entertainment for Korea’s largely agricultural population. The mural was previously located at 981 Western Avenue in Koreatown.

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Kim wants his mural to carry that tradition forward while also reflecting the history of the community it was created for.

The Korean Resource Center, founded by South Korean democracy activist Yoon Han-bong, has long organized around immigrant rights, workers’ rights and civic engagement. During the project, Kim learned that traditional Korean drumming has long played a role in the organization’s activism.

In the mural, an older drummer who immigrated from Korea leads the group, followed by a middle-aged performer who learned from him and younger drummers wearing sneakers, modeled after college students who continue the tradition today.

“Where we landed was very much to the core of what KRC is,” Kim said. “They are very activist and progressive.”

The Koreatown of today is filled with Korean-owned businesses and Korean-language signs, Kim said, but far fewer public murals reflecting Korean culture.

His latest mural isn’t about recreating the past so much as restoring something he believes has faded from the neighborhood.

As an artist, Kim said, public art has the power to shape how people experience a place.

“There’s something about the everyday landscape that you kind of are forced to take in,” he said, “and then as an artist, having the ability to shape what that might be.”

Lineage Logistics, the company that operates the burned cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights, announced yesterday it's removed “nearly half” of the food waste there.

The waste, the company said, has been sealed in deodorized containers and is being transported off-site.

Lineage estimated that demolition and cleanup of the rest of the burned structure should be largely completed in the “coming days.”

Before the weeklong fire that began on June 17, the warehouse stored approximately 44,000 tons, or 88 million pounds, of food.

The company said it has started removing the wall separating the burned and unburned sections of the building this weekend to speed up the cleaning of the unburned structure.

The process includes installing plastic sheeting where the wall used to be to help tamp down odors

That part could take up to three days and may temporarily increase odors. To mitigate the smell, the company said three carbon filters will be added on the Union Pacific side of the warehouse.

The company is trying to meet a 45-day deadline set by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass to complete the cleanup. Lineage has faced citations and warnings from L.A. County and the South Coast Air Quality Management District for "an ongoing odor nuisance" and “unsanitary and nuisance conditions.”

A slate of popular peptide therapies has won the backing of a key advisory panel to the federal government — a step that could eventually open up broader access to the experimental drugs.

In a marathon two-day meeting last week, the panel of doctors, academics and pharmacists recommended the Food and Drug Administration reclassify almost all of the compounds under consideration so that specialized pharmacies in the U.S. could begin offering them.

Seven different peptide therapies — none of which are FDA-approved drugs — were under consideration.

Currently, these peptides can't be made in the U.S., except for research purposes, leading many peptide users to buy unvetted substances sold online, with disclaimers such as "for research use only" and "not for human consumption."

By narrow margins, the panel voted in favor of all but one. The FDA isn't required to follow advisory committee recommendations but typically does.

The outcome represents a win for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has publicly supported peptide therapies, and the broader wellness and longevity industry, which stands to profit substantially.

These peptides are promoted for a wide range of uses and are often taken together, including for injury recovery, muscle growth and fat loss, improving athletic performance, enhancing metabolism and more.

If the agency takes the panel's recommendations, clinicians could have the ability to prescribe six peptide therapies: BPC-157, MOTS-c, KPV, TB-500, Epitalon and Semax.

A compound called Emideltide, sometimes used for insomnia, was the only one to receive a down vote.

The panel's endorsement of peptides was a striking rejection of the FDA's stance against them.

While the level of evidence for each compound varies, all of them lack the kind of large, well-controlled trials in humans that are necessary to establish safety and effectiveness, which is required for drug approvals. Peptides are strings of amino acids — smaller than a protein — that often act as signaling molecules in our bodies and carry out many critical functions.

They can be synthesized and delivered as drugs, often by injection. Some of those, like insulin, are naturally occurring in the body. Others are modified versions, as with the blockbuster GLP-1 obesity drugs.

Scientists for the agency spoke extensively about the lack of reliable data for any of the seven peptides before the committee. They advised the panel to vote no.

In some cases, they couldn't find any published clinical studies in humans — and there were safety concerns like the potential to encourage cancer growth or to trigger a massive immune response.

A "foundational challenge" was simply defining the substances, because the chemical composition for peptides labeled with the same name varied considerably, explained FDA official Russell Wesdyk.

"You will see many, many different forms," he said. "We can't create quality standards until we actually know what it is."

The divide among the experts on the panel was a study in contrasts.

Ahead of the meeting, eight new members were appointed. Most have ties to the peptide industry and include physicians who work for medical practices and companies that promote them.

In almost all cases, they voted in favor of lifting restrictions.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services pushed back on criticism about potential conflicts of interest and said all underwent the standard ethics and vetting process.

"I think it's about patient access," said Dr. Asare Christian, one of the panel members who runs a Pennsylvania-based clinic that advertises peptide protocols and hormone optimization.

That sentiment was echoed throughout the many hours of public comment.

Compounding pharmacies, large telehealth providers and others from the industry underscored the perils of the unregulated marketplace, with some offering anecdotes of patients obtaining unmarked vials from sketchy suppliers.

"What we are advocating for is not the Wild West," said Brigham Buhler, who runs a telehealth company that offers hormone optimization and peptides and is an ally of Secretary Kennedy.

"What we are advocating for is to slow down or shut down the gray and black market and to allow patients to have a safe and effective manufacturing process," he told the panel.

But some panelists were skeptical of that argument.

"I'm concerned that we are responding to market-induced demand rather than a decision based in solid science," Dr. Elizabeth Rebello, an anaesthesiologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, commented after casting a no vote.

The FDA committee was tasked with reviewing data that supports using these peptides to treat a variety of specific conditions, such as BPC-157 for treating ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease.

However, if the FDA ultimately reclassifies them and they are produced by compounding pharmacies in the U.S., clinicians would have discretion to write prescriptions outside of those narrow indications.

During the meeting, industry groups — and some on the panel — repeatedly criticized the FDA presentations for not reflecting more recent scientific data on the substances, including results from other human studies that had been submitted ahead of time.

FDA staff said they had considered everything submitted by the meeting deadline and would still take new information into account as they weigh next steps.

The decision to place the products on the FDA's official list for compounding doesn't come close to the standards for drug approval, but some worry that nuance will not be clear to the public, which may not be aware of the limited data for humans.

"I think this endorsement can be potentially harmful and I cannot in good conscience vote yes," said Dr. Brian Lee, a member of the panel and an associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

If the FDA moves to reclassify the peptides so that compounding pharmacies can make them, it will be through a formal rulemaking process that could stretch into next year or 2028. There is a possibility that Kennedy could invoke special authority to make them available sooner.

The panel is scheduled to meet again in February to consider additional peptide therapies.
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