Injunction Issued in Alleged Feuer Threat

A Superior Court judge issued an injunction Thursday against a man accused of threatening City Councilman Mike Feuer, ordering the man not to threaten the lawmaker or carry a weapon into city buildings.

The six-month restraining order against Eugene Krischer was more limited than the three-year restrictions sought by Feuer and two city planning workers who said they had been threatened. They had asked that Krischer be barred from calling or visiting Feuer’s three offices and the City Planning Department.

“He can go to those locations, he can call,” Judge S. James Otero decided. “He can be a pain in the rear end to the city of Los Angeles. He has a right to that.”

The court heard testimony from the councilman, his staff, a police detective and others that portrayed Krischer as a persistent gadfly who often dressed in military garb and was known to carry a knife.

Feuer, who testified Wednesday, said Krischer left a series of threatening messages last year on his office voicemail system. The messages were later erased, Feuer said. No taped evidence of Krischer’s alleged threats was submitted in court.

A spokesman for Feuer said the councilman, who was not in court Thursday, would not comment on the injunction.

Krischer testified that he did not mean to threaten Feuer or the other workers, saying his statements had been misinterpreted. He said the statement, “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” allegedly left on Feuer’s voicemail, referred not to violence but to Krischer’s “scholastic abilities.”

“What they’re doing is simply trying to shut down a political opponent of Mr. Feuer,” said Krischer’s attorney, Christopher Sutton. “This is government at its worst.”

The judge said his order, which also forbids Krischer from threatening Jaime Lopez, a city planner, was meant to protect both the safety of city employees and Krischer’s constitutional right to petition his government.