The wife of a Los Angeles police officer assigned to the Central Community Police Station is suing the city after both she and her husband contracted typhus, which she alleges resulted from his working at an unsafe building located in an area with a large homeless population.
Barbara Wong's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges negligence and liability on the city's part for having a dangerous condition on public property and seeks unspecified damages. The complaint criticizes Mayor Eric Garcetti, Police Chief Michel Moore, and others for allegedly failing to take corrective action, reports KFI.
Wong's husband, Franklin Chen, joined the LAPD in 2013 and was assigned to the Central Community Police Station two years later. Numerous calls for service to the station are related to the homeless population that lives on nearby streets and parks, the suit states.
Chen became violently ill with a high fever last spring and was diagnosed with typhus in June, and Wong contracted the disease from her husband in October, according to the suit, which says she believes he got the disease from a flea bite.
