Foreclosures Are Directly and Indirectly Leading to Violence and Death

The unabated surge in foreclosures is directly or indirectly leading to more violence and death.

MacFarland Avenue was just like any other region housing blue-collar people who work and live in Wilmington. They had suffered their fair share of foreclosure woes. But a sudden tragedy made them wake up to the deadly realities surrounding them.

The people of Wilmington were feeling fed up. There were foreclosed reo homes, strikes by refinery workers, cutbacks for workers in Port of Los Angeles, closed down body shop plastered with graffiti and a men pushing shopping carts digging inside trash bins.

Against such a background tragedy struck causing them to burst forth in outrage amidst grief. Perhaps the slaughter that took place on McFarland Avenue cannot be directly blamed to the foreclosure crisis but the neighbours of Ervin Lupoe felt a bond with the man who claimed that the desperation of the times had led him on to do what he did. The story spread like wildfire across California and beyond its borders.

A man shot and killed this wife, daughter (8 years) and two sets of twins (2 year old boys and 5 year old girls) before taking his life with the same gun. Both Lupoe and his spouse Anna had recently been fired from their work as hospital technicians at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, West Los Angeles. They had given false statements about their earnings so as to avail of cheaper childcare benefits.

Financial pressures were weighing them down. The IRS was due a minimum amount of $15,000. A cheque paid to the agency had bounced. Moreover Lupoe was lagging behind in his mortgage payment and foreclosure was imminent. He owed huge amount as late fee apart from thousands of dollars on a home equity line of credit.

Faced with these insurmountable problems he staged a drama. He took the children from school, packed his car with clothing and gave the appearance of leaving for the home of his brother-in-law in Garden City, Kansas. Without actually doing so, he faxed a disconnected letter to a local television news centre on morning of the tragic day. He alleged that the administrator of the hospital had told him not even to bother to report for work and that he “should have blown (his) brains out. Simultaneously he contacted his brother-in-law and informed him that he had murdered his entire family.

As soon as news trickled through the worried neighbours entered the house to see for themselves the tragedy.