Article Text:Bassett resident Fletcher Johnston awoke Jan. 7 with one task in mind: clean up a murder scene. Just eight hours before he started scrubbing, an Ontario resident was shot in front of Johnston's home in a suspected gang killing. Marcel Johanny Leal, 25, died in the street, leaving behind bloody remains and other bodily fluids near Johnston's car and in the middle of Santa Mariana Avenue. What should have happened next, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy, is that deputies should have called someone to clean the street. When a violent crimescene needs cleaning, whether on private or public property, most people have no clue who to call, experts say. As health and safety regulations have stiffened, an industry has developed for crime-scene cleaning professionals. While police sometimes refer them to independent companies or call upon the fire department, some property owners simply pull out the Comet and scrub down the scene themselves, said Tammy Chalmers. She co-owns CrimeSceneSteri-Clean, a Rancho Cucamonga company that often responds to cleanup calls in the San Gabriel Valley. Chalmers said foul odors and disease can linger if a crimescene is not cleaned properly. Decomposed bodies leave behind a stench and attract maggots. Blood and bodily fluids can transmit Hepatitis B, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and meningitis, she said. Even the sight of a crimescene, especially if the victim died in a loved one's home, can be horrifying. "Folks are so traumatized when something like this happens in and around their property," Peavy said. "The worst thing in the world is for them to have to look at where their loved one died."
Besides health regulations, a water ordinance imposed in 1998 prevents fire departments from simply washing biohazards down the storm drain - a com mon practice until a year ago, according to Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Rick Dominguez. The average cleanup cost can range from $700 to $1,000, said Ben Mihm, owner of Monrovia- based Emergency Response CrimeScene Cleaning. The high cost is another reason residents shy away from calling in professionals, experts say. But homeowners' insurance will sometimes cover the cleaning costs, said Tully Lehman, spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California. "As long as the homeowner isn't the one that commits the crime, your insurance would likely cover it," he said. More and more, it is crimescene companies responding to the cleanup calls. Mihm, who is a retired Glendale police officer, knows how biohazard situations - whether from human remains, forensic cleanups or jail facilities - can go neglected. That's one of the reasons he started Emergency Response CrimeScene Cleaning in 1998. "Cities have not all become responsible for what is their responsibility," Mihm said. Claremont police Capt. Gary Jenkins said the department decided to contract with CrimeScene Cleaning after several officers came into contact with a highly infectious inmate and had to be taken to the hospital. Now, the station gets sanitized quarterly.
Some fire departments, however, are still responding to crimescenes when called upon by police. "We are still the primary agency to handle that stuff," said Fred Law, battalion chief at the Pasadena Fire Department. The department treats medical waste with a simple solution of bleach and water. "After we treat it, it is pretty much bacteria-free," Law said. "Very rarely do we wash anything down." Cleaning companies guarantee that after they treat a crimescene with their high-pressure wash machines it will be germ-free. That information could have been helpful to Johnston. Instead, he spent his Sunday morning raking bloody leaves, sweeping up dirt and body tissue, and washing pools of blood down the street with water. "If anyone should be cleaning this," Johnston said, "it should be the people that the murder."
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(c) 2007 San Gabriel Valley Tribune. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
