City to Buy, Raze House Where Gang Rape Occurred

Four months after 82-year-old Viola McClain was killed in the aftermath of a gang rape of a girl in a vacant house in Watts, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to buy the house, raze it and replace it with a prefabricated home to be sold to a low-income family.

The move is part of a new program in which the city will acquire and rehabilitate nuisance properties throughout the city. The Watts house where the gang rape reportedly occurred last August was owned by the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, which agreed last week to sell it to the city for $20,750, 32% of its estimated market value.

“This site has continued to act as a severe nuisance in the Watts neighborhood and is subject to regular vandalism,” Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. wrote in the motion the council approved unanimously. “It has become a very negative symbol and reminder to the community of the tragedy that occurred there.”