County opens bullet-riddled apartment unit
Josh Kleinbaum
Two neighbors stood in front of the door Thursday, shaking their
heads at the scene inside Unit 225 at Griffith Park Apartments, where
their neighbor, Jorge Beeton, held Burbank and Glendale police at bay
for several hours the week before.
“Looking at all the damage here today, it’s unbelievable that
nobody got hurt,” said Peter Aguilar, who lived three doors down from
Beeton in the apartment complex at 400 Paula Ave. “I was in my
apartment when it all happened. It was very reminiscent of the OK
Corral, or a Wild West show.”
After an investigator from the Los Angeles County Public
Administrator’s Office removed wooden boards that had covered Unit
225 since May 29, Aguilar and other residents looked over the
remnants of the standoff.
The cramped one-bedroom apartment gave a glimpse into the life of
Beeton, who fired shots at police and passersby, then engaged police
in a five-hour siege before killing himself, according to
authorities. Police had not determined a motive for Beeton’s actions
by Thursday.
The door is peppered with bullet holes, 146 in all -- 144 of them
small and cluttered sprays. The other two are larger, about the size
of a hockey puck. All of the shots appear to have been from inside
the apartment.
The apartment’s lone window, next to the door, is mostly
destroyed. One pane is completely gone, and the other is riddled with
bullet holes, with some large pieces missing. A sticker remains,
though, declaring Beeton a member of the Neighborhood Watch program.
Bullet holes cover the walls surrounding the door and window.
Inside, empty bottles, milk cartons, cereal boxes and dirty
laundry are scattered across the floor. A folding table has been
converted into a makeshift desk, with a computer and other electronic
equipment. Bullet holes have made a shambles of the computer monitor.
Against the left wall is a bookshelf, a filing cabinet and another
folding table, with a miniature refrigerator on the table. Atop the
bookshelf is a small television. Like the computer monitor, the TV
was shot to pieces.
Behind the desk, a mattress and a box spring are turned on their
sides, as if to form a barricade.
In the closet, clothes hang fresh from the dry cleaner, still
covered and tagged, including Beeton’s security guard uniform. He had
recently left his job as a security guard for Pinkerton Security Inc.
Two miniature police cars sit on a bookshelf, and his book
collection focuses on weapons and law enforcement.
“He was like a cop wannabe,” property owner Michael Eng said. “He
hadn’t come out of his apartment in two months.”
A can of Del Monte mixed vegetables still sits on the table next
to the refrigerator. A bullet had torn through the side of the can.
Much of the apartment is covered by a thick pink film, especially
near the door and the window, the remains from tear-gas grenades that
police pumped into the apartment May 29. The gas had not lost its
potency Thursday, and cleaning out the apartment was nearly
impossible.
“I can only stay in there about 10 minutes at a time,” said Mike
Freeman, a handyman who was trying to clean the apartment. “I was in
there cleaning up, and I accidentally touched my face, and it burned
the heck out of my face.”
The gas seeped through the walls, and Eng said he had to move the
resident in Apartment 226 into a new unit. Eng estimates the damage
could cost him anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000.
“A lot of people were taking a look to see what’s going on,”
Freeman said. “It’s like a tourist stop.”