Parolee Moved to Head Off Clash

A recently paroled murderer, who had been convicted of killing a police officer and mutilating a college student with a machete, was removed from his home in North Hollywood on Tuesday because state officials feared that a confrontation was brewing between the man and his alarmed neighbors.

Raymond Louis George, 36, was removed from an apartment in the 11800 of Vanowen Street where he had lived since Jan. 18 when he was paroled after serving nearly three years in prison after a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon, a knife.

George, who is on medication for a psychiatric condition, had previously served nine years in prison after being convicted of killing a police officer, assaulting two others and attacking a 19-year-old student with a machete in 1974.

Parole officials would not say where he is now being housed.

Information on George’s criminal history and mental condition was made public in news reports and in a strongly worded Los Angeles Police Department internal memo that was mailed without authorization this week to residents of his North Hollywood neighborhood.

Jerry DiMaggio, regional administrator of the parole division of the California Department of Corrections, said the publicizing of George’s location caused great alarm in the community that might have led to a confrontation between neighbors and the ex-convict.

“We moved him because, with all of the notification that has taken place in the community, I was afraid there might be some sort of demonstration,” DiMaggio said. “George is a dangerous person and we didn’t want him to ‘go off’ if a confrontation occurred. His psychiatric condition is delicate and he might act out.”

DiMaggio said George has been temporarily moved to a facility that has a full-time Department of Corrections staff to supervise him. He said it had not been determined when or where George will be moved from the facility to his own apartment while serving the rest of his three-year parole.

“It depends on what happens once the interest dies down,” he said. “Right now he is under full-time surveillance and we are providing him with very intense supervision,” including weekly psychiatric counseling and drug therapy.

Supervision Assignment

While the ex-convict will no longer live in North Hollywood, he will remain assigned to the Van Nuys parole office for supervision, DiMaggio said. Parole officials are not required to publicly release a parolee’s address, he said. Only local police have been notified of George’s location, he added.

“We don’t want to exacerbate the situation by highlighting his location again,” DiMaggio said. “There is no law that requires disclosure of his residence. His residence is personal information that is released only on a need to know. That would be the police” and not the community.

DiMaggio said George had become aware of the controversy surrounding his move to the apartment on Vanowen and readily agreed to be moved elsewhere.

DiMaggio said several residents of the Vanowen neighborhood called his office after seeing news reports or receiving the police memo in the mail. The memo, which was intended for police officers only, outlined George’s criminal history and said he was a mentally ill man who “believes his mission in life is to kill police officers and women.”

An anonymous note that accompanied the memo in the mail said, “George is a time bomb waiting to go off.”

“Residents in the area were very alarmed,” DiMaggio said. “Somehow the memo got passed around the community and it snowballed from there. The Singleton case comes to mind.”

In that highly publicized case, Lawrence Singleton, a convicted rapist-mutilator, was paroled from a California prison in 1986 but officials had to move him repeatedly from one community to another as his location was revealed and citizens protested.

North Hollywood police and most Vanowen Street residents were pleased to learn that George had been moved.

“All things considered, I’d just as soon not have him in my division--but he is still out there somewhere,” said Capt. Daniel B. Watson, commander of patrol in North Hollywood and author of the memo sent to residents.

Others were not as reserved.

“Oh, good, good,” said Jean Scalco, 52. “I don’t want any murderers around.”

Right to Live

Another resident, Tony Chavez, said that he realized George has a right to live anywhere he wants, but that he was glad the information about the ex-convict became public.

“I would feel sorry for any neighborhood that he is placed into,” said Chavez, 32. “Everyone’s going to say they don’t want him.”

Jim Busnach, director of Dial Education Center in the 12000 block of Vanowen, said George was “not as personally threatening as the kids who live in the area.”

He said that his center, which offers traffic school and courses to drunk drivers, has been burglarized three times since 1985 and is repeatedly vandalized.

“I don’t know who I should be more intimidated by, these young ruffians who go around stealing cars and mugging people, as opposed to somebody who’s been in prison, knows what it’s like” and doesn’t want to go back, he said.

Busnach said he believed George should be allowed the chance to complete parole without undue interference.

‘No Devil’s Island’

“That’s what this country is all about,” he said. “The guy has to go someplace, there’s no Devil’s Island here. . . . We’ve got to deal with the man, and he’s got to deal with society, because we’re all stuck on the same planet together.”

Watson said Tuesday that he has begun an investigation to determine who mailed the internal memo to residents.

“I have no idea how it got released, but we are attempting to find out,” he said. Chavez said that police officers came to his door Tuesday afternoon and asked for the memo he received in the mail Monday, but that he declined to give it up.

“I said I wanted to keep it for my personal purposes,” he said. “I hope police don’t find out who released the information. Whoever that person is, I’m glad they did it.”