The Brief

The city of Inglewood has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by a man who spent 38 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

Maurice Hastings, 72, was convicted of sexual assault and murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole in connection with the 1983 killing of Roberta Wydermyer. Decades later, DNA testing led to his exoneration.

“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”

His lawyers have said they believe the settlement is the largest for a wrongful conviction in California history.

“This historic settlement is a powerful vindication for Mr. Hastings, who has shown remarkable fortitude first in fighting to prove his innocence, and then in showing that he was framed,” attorney Nick Brustin said. "Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch.”

LAist reached out to the city of Inglewood by telephone but has not heard back.

Background on the case

After two trials, a jury found Hastings guilty in 1988 of murdering 36-year-old Wydermyer and attempting to murder her husband and his friend. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty.

For more than two decades, Hastings had asked for DNA collected from semen found in the victim's mouth to be tested. Two L.A. County district attorneys fought against it.
Finally, former District Attorney George Gascón agreed, and testing matched DNA from the crime to a man serving time in prison for kidnapping and sexual assault.

Hastings' verdict was vacated in 2022 when he was 69. In 2023, a Superior Court declared him factually innocent.

In his lawsuit against the city of Inglewood, which was headed to trial this month, Hasting’s lawyers pointed to how a police detective “fixated” on Hastings despite evidence that pointed to innocence. According to the lawsuit, the detective coerced eyewitnesses to identify Hastings, suppressed alibi evidence and falsified witness statements.

The detective admitted he buried critical evidence that would have supported Hastings’ innocence, according to Hastings’ lawyers.

“What happened in this case represents policing at its absolute worst,” attorney Katie McCarthy said.

Hastings’ attorneys said the Inglewood Police Department ignored overwhelming evidence that another man, Kenneth Packnett, was the true perpetrator of the crimes.

Less than three weeks after the murder, police had Packnett in custody on suspicion of an unrelated car theft.

When he was arrested, Packnett had jewelry and a coin purse with him that matched the items Wydermyer had been wearing when she was killed. He also had the same type of gun that was used to shoot the victims.

Police never investigated Packnett for the crimes, according to Hastings’ attorneys.

Exonerations linked to misconduct by officials

Hastings has been out of prison since 2022. Today, he lives a quiet life in Southern California, where he is active in his church and volunteers distributing meals to people experiencing homelessness, according to a statement from his lawyers.

“I thank God that I’ve made it to the other side of this decades-long ordeal, and I thank my family and legal team for their steadfast support over the years,” he said.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, there have been 3,733 people exonerated of their crimes since 1989. Collectively, they spent 34,667 years behind bars.

The registry’s annual 2024 report — issued in April — said official misconduct continues to be a major factor in exonerations.

Official misconduct occurred in 104 or 71% of exonerations that occurred last year, according to the registry. Most of those cases involved more than one kind of misconduct, such as the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense (95 cases), witness tampering (43 cases) and perjury by an official actor (39 cases).

Race remains an important factor too — 78% of exonerations last year (115 out of 147) were people of color. Nearly 60% of the exonerees were Black.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Galen Banks spent years cycling through addiction and homelessness after leaving the U.S. Navy with an other-than-honorable discharge.

On Monday, standing inside the Koreatown home where he has lived since April, Banks said rebuilding his life has also helped him reconnect with his daughter after nearly seven years without contact.

“I feel good. My mental health is going well,” Banks said. “When I was out there … I was using crack, I was stealing, I was breaking into people’s cars. I wasn’t talking to my daughter.”

Galen Banks, the first resident of a new affordable housing development for veterans in Koreatown, sits inside his apartment Monday, Aug. 3.

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Banks, 50, who is recovering from drug addiction, is the first resident of a new affordable housing development that transformed a historic Craftsman house into 19 individual units for veterans, many of whom had experienced homelessness and, like Banks, were discharged under conditions that often leave them ineligible for Veterans Affairs benefits.

Banks served aboard an aircraft carrier before he was discharged in 1998 after being caught smoking marijuana. After leaving the military, his addiction worsened, leading to a four-month prison sentence in 2009 on a drug paraphernalia conviction.

He was later transported from Folsom State Prison to Los Angeles to address an outstanding warrant, but after a court gave him credit for time served, he had no way to return to Fresno, where he was required to report for parole.

“That’s actually when my homelessness started, because I had no way to get back to Fresno,” he said. “And eventually, I ended up on Skid Row.”

More than a decade later, Banks is one of 19 veterans living in the converted Craftsman house, giving him his first stable home in years and the opportunity to begin rebuilding his life.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined housing advocates, city officials and nonprofit partners Monday to open the $16 million development, which she said demonstrates how smaller existing properties can be converted into affordable housing.

“Affordable housing doesn’t always mean large, high-rise buildings,” Bass said. “We have to think creatively to reimagine some of the historic spaces that define our communities as we accelerate the creation of more housing.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, center, joins city officials and others during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new 19-unit affordable housing development for veterans in Koreatown on Monday, Aug. 3.

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The project, developed by Holos Communities on city-owned land, preserves much of the home’s original character.

Rather than demolishing the historic Craftsman as originally planned, developers retained the facade facing the street and restored features including leaded-glass windows, high ceilings and a roof built with wood salvaged from the original home, while adding a contemporary three-story residential wing in the rear.

“It wasn’t just about historic preservation,” said Logan O’Phelan, director of operations for Holos Communities. “It also preserves resident well-being.”

O’Phelan said the building’s high windows, ceilings and porch encourage cross-ventilation and natural cooling. Retaining the house’s appearance also allows the development to resemble neighboring homes, he said, reducing the stigma sometimes associated with supportive housing.

Construction was delayed for years due to financing after Holos was awarded the site in 2019, according to O’Phelan. Ground broke in 2024. 

Residents receive intensive case management, stable housing assistance and health care connections through The People Concern. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles committed 15 project-based vouchers for 20 years and expects to provide nearly $7 million in rental subsidies, according to officials.

Identifying 19 veterans took nearly a year because the development is specifically intended for people with other-than-honorable discharges, according to Lety Muro, a community development coordinator for Holos Communities.

On Monday, Bass said Los Angeles recently placed its 1,000th veteran into permanent housing through her House Our Vets initiative. 

For Banks, having his own space has allowed him to focus on what comes next. He hopes to get a service dog and work in peer support, helping veterans and people recovering from addiction navigate struggles similar to his own.

After moving into the building in April, Banks said he found the confidence to reconnect with the daughter he feared had written him off during the years he spent unhoused.

“But it was totally the opposite,” Banks said. “She said, ‘Where you been? I missed you.’ Yeah, we got a good relationship today.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District will hold a public hearing Wednesday to consider ordering additional measures to reduce odors during cleanup of the Lineage warehouse fire site. 

The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. and will include public testimony. Community members can participate in person, by Zoom or by phone.

Since July 12, the South Coast AQMD has received nearly 4,000 odor complaints that inspectors have traced back to the cold-storage warehouse, according to a petition for an abatement order filed against Lineage. If granted, the order would require the company to, among other things, power wash and disinfect concrete flooring once all solid waste is removed from the second freezer on the eastern half of the facility.

The hearing board will consider the petition at Wednesday’s meeting. 

Between July 12 and July 30, South Coast AQMD issued 19 violations to Lineage, alleging the company created a public nuisance by releasing odors that affected nearby residents, according to the notices of violation. The agency alleges that Lineage violated South Coast AQMD Rule 402 and California Health and Safety Code section 41700, which can lead to civil penalties ranging from $1,000 to $75,000 per day.

Lineage has said it is working to mitigate the rancid smells coming from its warehouse as it hauls away dozens of truckloads of waste.

“We are using a variety of approaches to minimize the effects, including: physical barriers (StormWrapper), applying a bleach solution in and around the building, running mist deodorizing systems around the site, and applying deodorizers directly to the debris to reduce odors as much as possible during that period,” according to Lineage’s website. “It will get better as the cleanup progresses.”

At a July 9 forum, Lineage Chief Operations Officer Jeff Rivera said the company was aiming to complete the cleanup within 45 days, a deadline set by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. 

How to attend the hearing

In person: South Coast AQMD Headquarters, Hearing Board Room, 21865 Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, CA 91765

Zoom: https://aqmd.zoomgov.com/j/1617214661 (Meeting ID:  161 721 4661)

Telephone: 1-669-216-1590  (Meeting ID:  161 721 4661)

Webcast: http://www.aqmd.gov/home/news-events/webcast

Instructions on how to participate via video or teleconference can be found here. The agenda can be found here.

How to report odors

The South Coast AQMD urges residents to call 1-800-CUTSMOG if they’re dealing with odors and to file a complaint every day so the agency can track the severity.

Anyone in the area can report odors, the agency said.

After receiving complaints, an inspector is sent to confirm the odor. People can call every day that they’re experiencing odors, and a public nuisance citation is issued after inspectors can confirm six complaints. People filing a complaint are required to provide their first and last name, location address and contact information in order to confirm the smell.

Starting this fall, 56 students from East Los Angeles College will use surplus apartment-style housing at Cal State L.A. in a first-ever partnership to address housing insecurity.

“ It's a natural marriage, a partnership, because many of our students from East Los Angeles College tend to attend Cal State L.A., and the neat part about this is that not only are they going to be housed at Cal State L.A., they will be provided with the resources typically given to Cal State students,” said Alberto Román, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.  “But more importantly, they're on campus and they can begin to see themselves as potential Cal State students.”

More than 50% of Los Angeles area community college students have declared they’re housing insecure, prompting a three-pronged approach by the Los Angeles Community College District to lease the excess rooms from Cal State L.A.

The partnership is for five years. By the third year, Román said the plan is to have 120 community college students housed at Cal State L.A. The partnership, as well as LACCD’s new plans to build and buy housing units close to community college campuses, is being funded by Measure LA.

“We at LACCD, which is the largest community college system in the country, have been grappling with this for a long time as we've seen L.A. deal with a housing crisis, with a housing affordability crisis, and we've seen so many of our students be affected by housing insecurity or the lack of housing,” said Sara Hernandez, board president of the Los Angeles Community College District.

It’s a moral issue for the district to ensure students have housing, she added, but also “an issue of enrollment.”

“ If people can't afford to live in Los Angeles, especially young people, then they are not going to be able to utilize the community college system, meaning our enrollment goes down,” Hernandez said.  

Other ways LACCD is addressing housing

Román said the LACCD is also exploring a housing partnership with California State University, Dominguez Hills to house community college students on their campus.

And through funding received from Measure LA, the LACCD is also embarking on a project to build housing on land they own at Pierce College and City College.

“ We will also look at procuring properties close to our colleges that could serve as dorms and are within walking distance of the college,” Román said. “ We have also put out a bid for property acquisition, meaning that we invite folks who may have properties available for housing to bid on that and to make them available to us.”

In 2022, voters approved Measure LA, which allowed the LACCD to issue a $5.3 billion bond, financed by a new property tax, to improve infrastructure and job training facilities across its nine colleges. Around $500 million was earmarked for housing.

The district’s goal,  Román said, was to fully pay for and provide housing for 1,500 to 2,000 students.

The Boyle Heights warehouse fire — and the stench of millions of pounds of rotting food that followed — spoiled summer break for neighborhood kids.

“ Summer's been like a worst nightmare because we couldn't be going outside,” said Noah, a 9-year-old student at Eastman Elementary. It’s one of eight schools serving thousands of students within a mile of the cold storage warehouse that burned in June.

The ongoing clean-up has also added a layer of anxiety and complication for parents at the start of the new school year.

Los Angeles Unified said in a statement Friday that the current plan is for students to return to their home campuses on Aug. 12, the first day of school. The district said staff conducted a “deep, thorough cleaning,” installed new air conditioning filters and air purifiers at affected campuses and that environmental testing is ongoing.

LAUSD superintendent Andrés Chait said in July that Boyle Heights summer school participation dropped after the relocation of four programs in response to the fire. The district declined to provide enrollment and attendance figures for the programs and instead instructed LAist to file a public records request for the information.

Marcela Chagoya is a special education history teacher at  Stevenson College and Career Prep, a middle school within a mile of the fire. She said some of her students relocated to temporary housing or moved in with extended family to escape the stench.

“ I always get excited every single year to see how much [students] grew over the summer,” Chagoya said. “But my concern really this time around is, are all my kiddos gonna come back?”

Some families LAist spoke with said they are ready to send their children back to school.

Ivett Dominguez’s son Diego will start second grade at Eastman next week after a summer spent inside watching TV and playing video games instead of going to baseball practice, swimming and playing at the park.

“I’m confident that it’ll be a good year for them, even if they’re not outside on the playground,” Dominguez said in Spanish.

[“ Confío que a lo mejor va a ser un buen año para ellos aunque no estén afuera del patio.”]

She said she feels like the school is safe, in part because of the new air purifiers.

But others, including Noah’s grandmother Brenda Wenger, said they haven’t decided whether to send children to class on the first day. Wenger said she attended one of the district’s recent webinars about the clean-up, but wants to see the campus for herself.

“ I'm gonna take my Clorox wipeys and I'm gonna look and see if it's been cleaned up or not,” Wenger said.

‘Mom, we’re going to die’

The fire began on June 17.

Dominguez, who lives about five blocks away, said when the air was thick with smoke her son Diego told her, “Ma, we’re going to burn. Ma, we’re going to die. We have to leave.”

[“ Ma, nos vamos a quemar. Ma, nos vamos a morir. Tenemos que irnos.”]

Dominguez said she reassured him that the firefighters would get the blaze under control. The L.A. Fire Department declared the fire "knocked down" a week later on June 24.

Ivette Dominguez and her son Diego live about five blocks from the Lineage warehouse. Dominguez said constantly running an air purifier has contributed to an electric bill that's more than tripled to about $170 per month.

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The warehouse stored approximately 88 million pounds of food. What didn’t burn decayed in the summer heat and attracted hordes of flies and rodents to the area. Lineage, the company that owns the warehouse, said that as of Monday night, it has removed about 80% of the food waste.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) has received more than 3,900 complaints about rotting meat and other food odors associated with the clean-up since July 12 and has cited the company 22 times for violating public nuisance rules.

Myrna Silva and her two children live one block from the warehouse. She said her daughter, who will soon start middle school, didn’t attend summer school or play in the park after the fire. Even walking their dog, nicknamed Don Goyo, has become challenging.

“As soon as they go out … they come running back in, because of the smell, because of the mosquitoes, because of the flies,” Silva said.

[“ Apenas salen … entran corriendo, porque el aroma, porque los zancudos, porque las moscas.”]

In recent days, the family has experienced stomach pains and diarrhea. Silva said she’s also concerned about how staying inside all summer has impacted her children’s mental health.

“Our kids will go to school frustrated,” Silva said. “They’re going to go into school stressed out. And what worries me is the reaction that all the children are going to have together. Some will adapt. Others won’t.”

[“ Nuestros hijos van frustrados a la escuela. Aan a entrar estresados a la escuela. Y lo preocupante es la reacción que van a tener todos los niños en conjunto. Algunos se van a acoplar. Otros no.”]

Silva said she’s more confident sending her son to Garfield High School because it’s farther from the site of the fire. But she worried about sending her daughter to Stevenson, which is within the 1-mile radius.

“I hope the district makes the best decisions so the kids are OK,” Silva said. “But I’m very worried about how a lot of children are going to react, because they’re under so much stress right now.”

[“Ojalá el distrito tome las mejores decisiones para que los niños estén bien. Pero me preocupa bastante el cómo van a reaccionar muchos niños, porque traen mucho estrés ahorita.”]

How is LAUSD cleaning and testing Boyle Heights schools? 

LAUSD classes start two days before L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’s deadline for Lineage to clean up the remaining food waste.

District leaders said in a July 29 webinar that their goal is for students to return to a school day that is “as normal as possible.” There will be at least two more webinars with information about schools near the warehouse before the first day of classes.

The district also has a family hotline at (213) 443-1300.

“To date, no local, state, or federal agencies have issued specific guidelines or mandates directing the District's response to the Lineage fire,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist in response to questions about campus cleaning and testing.

Instead, the district reviewed environmental monitoring data, consulted with UCLA and USC environmental health researchers and reflected on past post-fire practices.

The district’s response to the Lineage fire has included:

• Inspecting and replacing air-conditioning filters with those rated MERV-13, an indicator of the filter’s ability to trap small particles
• Deep cleaning, including by washing walls and furniture, waxing floors and pressure-washing outdoor areas and playground equipment
• Placing air purifiers with carbon charcoal filters in all classrooms

Carlos Torres, who leads the district’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the district monitored air quality during and after the fire and facilitated the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s installation of additional air-monitoring equipment at Eastman Elementary and Stevenson Middle Schools.

“We have enough information to show that our schools are safe,” Torres said. Additional testing is ongoing and results will be posted on the district’s website before school starts, Torres said. The district has said laboratory results from air and surface samples will be published online in early August. Those results had not been posted as of Monday afternoon.

Several people, including members of the teacher’s union and area Board Member Rocío Rivas, have called on the district to also conduct soil testing.

Boyle Heights is one of several East and Southeast L.A. communities with persistently high levels of lead linked to the former Exide battery recycling facility.

A district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist that the district has conducted “extensive dust wipe samples.”

“Soil sampling is a more general type of sampling, whereas dust wipe sampling enables us to detect the presence of toxins that may be present following an industrial fire,” the statement read.

It’s unclear whether the dust wipe results are available for public review.

Gilberto Martinez, executive director of region operations, said principals will have the discretion to bring students inside during recess and mealtimes if foul odors arise.

“ I'm feeling kind of scared and nervous because... what if we're not going to be able to play outside,” said Aiden, Noah’s brother and fellow student at Eastman Elementary. “We’re just going to be trapped inside just learning?”

Myrna Silva and her daughter Getzetmany stand in front of InnerCity Struggle, a local nonprofit that's provided resources, including air purifiers, to residents living nearby the warehouse fire site.

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Jill Johnston, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at UC Irvine, said while unfortunate for students like Aiden, limiting outdoor activity when strong odors are present is the right call.

“There are bad smells, which are a nuisance. But there are also toxic chemicals that are in the air,” said Johnston, who has been working with Boyle Heights community groups to understand the effects of the fire. “Many of these are linked to nausea, to headaches, to adverse respiratory outcomes.”

Johnston said she was pleased to see that nearby schools are equipped with air purifiers that have carbon-based filters, which can remove odor-causing compounds from the air. Johnston said schools need to minimize how much outdoor air is getting inside for the filters to work well.

“The big test is: can kids go into the school and it be a refuge from all the odors that are outside?” Johnston said. “If so, then that's pretty effective.”