VA campus security falters as jurisdiction stalls

VA campus – Disabled veterans living on the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles describe a neighborhood where reported crime can’t reliably be investigated or followed through. They point to a jurisdictional tangle between the Los Angeles Police Depa

For more than 10 hours, a body lay unsecured while burglars twice picked through the dead man’s room—one of the most chilling episodes circulating among veterans living on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles.

Residents say their reports of theft and other crimes go unheeded because the campus sits in what they describe as a law-enforcement no man’s land. The community is an unincorporated island surrounded by the city of Los Angeles but outside the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Technically, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department polices the campus’s 388 acres. But residents and advocates say the distant West Hollywood Station rarely responds to calls, if ever. Meanwhile. the VA Police Department—mostly tasked with security at the hospital—cannot be “deputized” under an obscure federal rule to enforce state law.

With the VA building more homes for disabled veterans, the need for policing is becoming more acute. The campus population. residents say. is rising from the hundreds to potentially thousands under President Trump’s 2025 executive order to create a National Center for Warrior Independence with housing for 6. 000 veterans.

In the absence of a clear official investigation, the incidents last September have hardened into stories veterans pass to one another, heightening anxiety in a community defined by vulnerability—physical disability, substance use, and trauma.

“Every time we turn around we’re doing an incident report,” said Tammy Chelossi, a resident service coordinator for the company that manages the building that opened in 2024. Chelossi said the building’s team calls the VA Police Department “all the time.”

“They come out [but say], ‘Our hands are tied.’”

In public forums and interviews, veterans living on the campus have also spoken of a culture of impunity. Their complaints include non-residents coming and going to buy and sell drugs, prostitution, crime brought on campus from outside, and unruly behavior by residents.

In May, a man pushed a wounded and visibly bleeding woman in a wheelchair out of the entrance of a building. In one version circulating—attributed to a source in the VA police—she had already been stabbed by the time she arrived at the VA.

Chelossi said she was disappointed the police did not treat the man who pushed her out as a suspect.

“They shook his hand and said, ‘Good job taking her outside to the ambulance,’” she said.

The VA Police Department did not respond to a call requesting reports of the two incidents.

Even when crimes are reported, residents say the lack of information about what happens next—whether arrests, citations, investigations, or prosecutions lead to follow-up—feeds fear.

Federal law requires the VA to publish statistics on those actions by local agencies. But the campus police website has no link to crime data. The VA responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from a campus advocate for data with a demand for $20. 004.36 in programming costs to retrieve the information.

The Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request on June 2 for VA Police records of the hallway death and the stabbing. The VA acknowledged the request but has not turned over any materials.

The security challenge didn’t begin with these incidents. For decades after the historic Old Soldiers’ Home was shut down in the 1970s. the two-thirds of the campus north of Wilshire Boulevard remained a collection of vacant. deteriorating buildings and residential programs for physical and mental health recovery. VA Police focus was concentrated on the third of the campus south of Wilshire Boulevard where the VA Medical Center rose.

VA Police enforcement was long concentrated on the southern third south of Wilshire Boulevard, where the VA Medical Center stands. For years, the north campus had no resident population.

That changed in recent years as legal actions forced the agency to repopulate the north campus. A 2011 lawsuit filed by disabled veterans began a slow but now accelerating movement by the VA to restore the north campus as a veteran community.

First came a federal court settlement requiring 1,200 units to be built—about half now completed. Then a second lawsuit resulted in an order to add 2,500 more, a ruling currently under appeal. Last May, President Trump issued an order to build housing for 6,000.

The jurisdictional mess deepened as the VA issued 99-year leases to local developers to build the initial 1,200 units. Jim Zenner, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said the leases changed how law enforcement could operate.

“As the VA leases the buildings to an entity, that’s no longer considered federal property,” Zenner said. “So they’re not able to enforce laws in those buildings.”

Zenner said the VA Police Department told him they were unable even to secure the dead body last September because they didn’t have jurisdiction.

“And so they had to literally wait for the Sheriff’s Department to get here and the Medical Examiner to get here,” Zenner said. “They didn’t get here for 10 or 11 hours.”

Zenner said he does not know whether their legal interpretation is correct.

“I get mixed messages like, ‘We can and we can’t because of the jurisdictional thing,’” he said. “‘Maybe we can, maybe we can’t’ is not allowing the VAPD to do what they need to do.”

As the north campus continues to develop. the security fight is also a contest of competing visions for who lives there. Some veteran groups are pushing for more diversity in housing options that include students. VA staff. and veterans working off campus. Other housing now existing and being built is subsidized for the homeless and disabled. Trump’s order calls for veterans from around the country to come for rehabilitative services.

Whatever direction the community takes, veterans and officials agree that future campus security depends on expanded law enforcement and clearer authority.

During a congressional hearing in May on Trump’s order, VA officials acknowledged a public safety problem and said they are taking steps to manage it.

“We want to make sure that veterans are living in a safe. drug free environment where they can thrive. and. as you all are aware. that’s not happening. ” Danielle Ranyan. senior counselor to the secretary. testified. “We’re taking care of that. But this didn’t just happen overnight, and it didn’t happen on President Trump’s watch.”.

Under Secretary for Health John J. Bartrum testified that the VA police had been beefed up from the 50s and 60s last year to over 80 and will eventually reach 160—a staff responsible not only for the campus, but for other facilities in the VA’s five-county Greater Los Angeles catchment area.

“Security is job one,” Bartrum said. “The veterans have to feel secure on the campus.”

As a stopgap, the VA brought on a private security firm in June to provide uniformed 24-hour “observe and report” sentry posts and roving patrols.

“I’m happy to see they’re at least doing something,” said Rob Reynolds, an Iraq war veteran who assists veterans to obtain services and housing. “I would say it makes it makes it feel safer.”

Reynolds and others, however, describe security as systemic.

Retired VA police chief Dave Weiner. who now owns a training business. said he doubts the VAPD can sustain the necessary strength without increasing pay. He said new recruits must work years to equal starting pay at nearby departments. and retirement benefits only kick in after 30 years compared to 20 years elsewhere.

“The pay has never been on par,” Weiner said. “It makes it very difficult for officers to live in the LA area. They have to live in Riverside or San Bernardino.”

(On Thursday, the VA announced a package of national reforms of the VA police force including an increase of entry-level pay.) Weiner said the modest increase “would not do much to change the competitive picture here in LA.”

Weiner also pointed to an administrative change that could make the VA police more effective: revising the clause in VA Directive 0730 that prohibits the agency from being deputized or appointed as special officers “for the purpose of enforcing state laws and local ordinances on VA property.” He said changing the directive could clarify whether VAPD officers can respond to and investigate reported crime on leased properties.

He said it could also clear officers to make mental health holds under California’s Welfare and Institutions Code, both on the campus and across the region. Weiner said VA police often respond to veterans in crisis seeking care but have no power.

“That is a tool for officers to utilize to get people into a system of care,” Weiner said. Currently, “either we have to leave people in crisis or we have to incarcerate them. That’s not a good situation.”

Zenner. the county military affairs department head. testified at the May hearing that the VA needs both state policing powers and a federal veteran treatment court on campus to support veterans who run afoul of the law. He said four Los Angeles Superior Court judges in courtrooms from Compton to Van Nuys hear cases of veterans charged with state crimes. Those courts function like mental health diversion courts. suspending adjudication of qualifying crimes while veterans receive treatment. often at the VA.

Zenner said the nearest federal treatment court that could handle cases under the VA’s jurisdiction is in San Diego, and few Los Angeles cases are routed there.

“Justice-involved veterans near the campus grapple with PTSD. traumatic brain injury. substance use disorders. and other invisible wounds stemming from their military service. ” Zenner said. “Instead of repeated incarceration, participants would be mandated into integrated mental health services, substance abuse programs, and veteran mentorship.”.

Anthony Allman, executive director of the nonprofit Vets Advocacy set up to monitor the earlier settlement, suggested the VA contract with the Sheriff’s Department to provide routine patrol on campus, as numerous small cities do.

The opportunity, Allman said, is ripe because the Sheriff’s Department is losing its contract with Metro, leaving extra capacity.

The VA said it tested the course and came up empty-handed.

At the congressional hearing, Ranyan testified that the VA’s assistant secretary for security met with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department earlier in the year to pursue a contract for 24-hour patrol.

“We were told that they’re down 2,000 police officers and that their morale is low and that they’re not even [able] to meet their own needs,” Ranyan said.

In response to questions from The Times. the Sheriff’s Department characterized Ranyan’s comment as inaccurate but acknowledged ongoing discussions with the VA on a new “memorandum of understanding.” Under an existing MOU. “Sheriff’s personnel respond to critical or emergent incidents when requested and when our resources or capabilities would be better equipped to address dynamic situations. ” the statement said.

Sheriff’s Department records reviewed by The Times show the agency reported one crime on the VA property in 2025 and one this year, both on the southern campus.

The department’s response did not resolve the core grievance residents describe: that when something happens, the authority to act can be blurred, the timeline can drag, and the people who live there are left waiting—sometimes for hours—for help to arrive.

VA campus security disabled veterans West Los Angeles VA Police Department Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department jurisdiction Freedom of Information Act Danielle Ranyan John J. Bartrum Tammy Chelossi