State Closes El Monte Home for Mentally Ill : Social services: Officials say residents faced ‘substantial threat to health and safety.’ Suspension will be in effect pending a hearing.

Teams of social workers helped mentally ill residents of an El Monte board-and-care home pack up their belongings Wednesday after the state took the extraordinary step of ordering the troubled home to close by 4 p.m. today.

The state Department of Social Services issued the temporary suspension order Tuesday, rather than wait for the 8-year-old home to go through the usual hearing process. Quick action was needed “to protect residents or clients of the facility from substantial threat to health and safety,” state officials said in documents released Wednesday.

The state has been investigating Dahlia Gardens Guest Home since one diagnosed schizophrenic resident allegedly beat another to death Feb. 8. The home, licensed to care for 92 people, has a long history of trouble, racking up 78 violations within the past year.

More than a dozen staff members from several county agencies helped the 72 residents of Dahlia Gardens pack. Most were relocated to other facilities in the area, while some were released to the custody of their families, said Martha Lopez, a deputy director with the Department of Social Services in Sacramento.

All but six residents were moved Wednesday. Those remaining will be moved today, Lopez said.

Dahlia Gardens owner Karl Hoffman declined to comment. Lopez said a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Wednesday denied his request for a temporary restraining order halting the suspension of his license.

State licensing inspectors recommended revocation of Hoffman’s license after meeting with him last week. Usually, such a recommendation initiates a long process involving a hearing that takes several months. But state officials said in their suspension order that conditions were so dangerous at Dahlia Gardens that the state was closing the facility until that process could be completed.

In a formal accusation outlining the grievances Tuesday, the state alleged that the home:

* Failed to ensure adequate supervision for the residents, contributing to two deaths. One was the Feb. 8 beating death; the other was a March, 1992, death in which an unsupervised resident obtained and ingested a lethal amount of medication.

* Failed to employ sufficiently qualified staff, resulting in repeated acts of violence among the residents.

* Allowed at least one client “regularly to drink large amounts of alcoholic beverages while also receiving prescription medications.”

Dahlia Gardens has received nearly 150 citations for violating state codes since it opened in 1987. On Feb. 8, LaRay King, 34, allegedly beat Leonard Sutton Jr., also 34, to death with a large rock. The lone staff member--who according to state code was supposed to be working directly with the home’s 72 residents--was washing dishes in a separate building. Both men were diagnosed schizophrenics. King, who according to the state documents previously had killed someone, has been charged with murder.