Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Carl Douglas announced Thursday the filing of a California Public Records Act request seeking documents from Los Angeles County about the emergency response to the January 2025 Eaton Fire in West Altadena, where 18 of the 19 people killed in the blaze lived.
The request, announced at a news conference at Douglas Hicks Law in Los Angeles, is part of what the attorneys described as an effort to examine whether residents of the historically Black community received delayed evacuation warnings and unequal emergency response, and to explore potential federal civil rights claims concerning whether race played a role in the county’s actions before and during the fire, according to a press release issued by Ben Crump Law.
The filing adds a private legal channel to accountability efforts already underway. In February, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a civil rights investigation into the same emergency response, examining whether race, age or disability discrimination contributed to evacuation delays in West Altadena, according to the attorney general’s office…