(Photo: LA Times)
When LAPD officer responded to a call in Venice Tuesday night, they found Eun Kang, a 38-year-old woman who was four months pregnant with twins, stabbed to death, and the alleged attacker, a 22-year-old man, standing in her apartment.
The man they arrested, Boneetio Kentro Washington, has been charged with three counts of capital murder with the special circumstances of multiple murders, murder during a rape and murder during a burglary, in addition to separate rape charges. At 11:30 a.m. this morning, civil rights leader Earl Ofari Hutchinson and others will pay tribute to Ms. Kang, and call on parole and probation officials to toughen their procedures on the release of criminals deemed mentally incompetent who have been convicted of serious felony crimes.
“The alleged assailant of Ms. Kang was a former convicted felon with serious mental problems,” says Earl Ofari Hutchinson, President of Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, and Eddie Jones, President of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Association, in a statement released prior their news conference in Venice this morning. “Yet, he was released. State officials must immediately re-examine their policies on the release of convicted felons with serious mental challenges.”
The LAPPL applauds Hutchinson and Jones for condemning lax probation and parole policies and decisions that pose a clear and present threat to public safety in our city. We again urge officials to use all available means to halt the early release of inmates from state prisons beginning in 2010.
Los Angeles Times reporters Andrew Blankstein and Robert Faturechi today recounted Washington’s criminal background and the probation that allowed him move freely about Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Washington had previous arrests for burglary and trespassing in Santa Monica and Los Angeles and misdemeanor trespassing arrests in Rhode Island and North Carolina. But nothing in his past appeared to show a predisposition to the kind of violence that occurred in the Venice slaying, according to sources familiar with the case who asked not to be identified because the investigation was continuing.
Court records show that Washington previously pleaded no contest to one count of residential burglary that was committed in Los Angeles in December 2008. The case was delayed after a doctor testified that Washington was not mentally competent to stand trial. Washington was committed to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County on July 7, 2009.
On Sept. 18, Washington returned to court with a certification from the facility that he was mentally cabable of standing trial.
Boneetio Kentro Washington is suspected of raping and fatally stabbing Eun Kang Tuesday night in Venice. (Photo: LA Times)
He pleaded no contest to first-degree residential burglary and was placed on formal probation before his release from custody for previous time served and credit for work and good behavior.
Sadly, this murder just proves again the case we have been making for months now: the budget-driven decision to provide early releases to criminals has, and will continue, to result in tragedy.
We call upon the community to speak out to our political leadership regarding these continued public safety failures and put a stop to any plans to a mass release of convicted felons from our state prisons.
