Break-in occurred during a security shift change
and thought he was being chased before the incident.
Carlos Bido, Hunter’s public defender, asked for his client to be released pending a preliminary hearing.
Bido confirmed that his client was under the influence of a controlled substance at the time of the break-in, though he did not specify which drug. Bido said Hunter was “gainfully employed” by a nonprofit organization, though he did not name the group.
Bido said Hunter “was not aware of his whereabouts.”
Superior Court Judge Kimberley Baker Guillemet ordered Hunter held in lieu of $100,000 bail. He is due back in court May 6.
Prosecutors revealed the new details of the case a few hours after interim Police Chief Dominic Choi reported that there were no security officers on the Getty House property at the time of the break-in.
Choi, fielding questions from reporters, said the break-in took place during a shift change, when “the officers that are there overnight leave to head back to their station and the oncoming shift comes on.”
“There was a short gap there, and that’s when that incident occurred,” he said. “That gap has been remedied. We’ve created an overlap so it doesn’t happen again.”
Choi said the intruder jumped over a fence and broke in through the back of the home. Once inside, he climbed the stairs to the second floor where the bedrooms are, police said.
At one point, Bass hid in a safe area designed to protect against intruders, according to two law enforcement sources who were not authorized to discuss the case with the media.
Asked whether the city’s security measures fell short Sunday, Choi said he didn’t think so.
“I don’t know if one officer there could have physically stopped him ... or seen him. The Getty House, as you know, is a very large property,” he said.
Choi said that in the past, a mix of armed and unarmed security has been assigned to patrol Getty House. The incident took place after the end of a shift handled by unarmed security, he said.
“To my understanding, this happened so quickly that even if somebody had been there, he probably still would have been able to access inside the residence,” he said.
Choi did not answer reporters’ questions about the exact length of the security gap, calling it “very small.”
He said the mayor’s security detail, which is made up of sworn LAPD officers, was “en route to the residence” when the break-in occurred. The detail was scheduled to arrive at 7 a.m. Sunday, Choi said.
Earlier in the day, Choi said he did not know whether the suspect was familiar with the residence. “Nothing in this person’s history suggests that this was a targeted or purposeful location,” he said.
Hunter, who lives in Los Angeles, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in Massachusetts in 2015, serving several years in state prison, records show.
On Monday, Bass declined to say whether she had been specifically targeted during the incident.
Seidl, her spokesperson, had no comment on either Choi’s or Gascón’s remarks. Bass has provided few details on the break-in so far, expressing gratitude to the LAPD and saying that she and her family are fine.
Spokeswomen for Gascón and the LAPD did not respond to requests to comment on the differing narratives between the police chief and district attorney.
In a phone interview Monday, a woman who identified herself as Hunter’s mother said he had been struggling with drug addiction and may have been suffering from hallucinations at the time of the incident.
The woman, Josephine Duah, said her son called her from jail Monday and claimed he had no idea he’d broken into the mayor’s residence.