Clash between officer, U.S. official intensifies Chabad dispute in Hollywood

Hollywood · A tense encounter between a police officer and Justice Department employee last week outside a controversial synagogue has sparked outrage from both sides and demands that supervisors investigate.

The U.S. Department of Justice is locked in a legal battle with Hollywood over alleged religious discrimination by the city.

In 2005, the agency joined the Chabad Lubavitch’s lawsuit, filed in 2004, against Hollywood over the city’s attempts to oust the Chabad from the single-family home it had converted into a synagogue in Hollywood Hills.

The Justice Department’s version of the March 16 dispute could not be more different than the city’s.

According to a March 21 letter from Steven Rosenbaum, the Justice Department’s housing and civil enforcement section chief, an unnamed justice employee was legally parked on the swale on North 45th Avenue near Thomas Street when an officer approached him at 7 p.m.

The man showed his federal credentials and told the officer he was conducting “official government business” regarding civil rights violations in Hollywood. The officer responded by telling the man he could arrest him for “numerous reasons,” including prowling and loitering, or on suspicion of being a pedophile. The officer then reached into the car, grabbed the employee’s notebook and read “confidential” material over the man’s objections.

The truth, according to a letter City Attorney Dan Abbott fired back on Thursday, is much different.

Here’s the city’s account:

Spooked neighbors called police that night because they saw two unknown men walking dark streets and alleys and sitting in a parked car in front of a family’s home for more than an hour. When neighbors asked one of the men who he was, he “responded with only sarcasm, refusing to identify himself or his purpose.”

Only one Justice Department employee was in the car when Officer Kevin McClintock arrived. He could have “alleviat[ed] the great fear he had caused in the community” by simply getting out of the car and identifying himself. Instead, he remained in the car. He would say only that he was parked legally.

McClintock reached into the car because he saw the man trying to hide something under his leg as the officer approached. When McClintock realized it was a notebook, not a weapon, he returned it without reading it.

The altercation was not diffused until a second Justice Department employee appeared, told the officer what they were doing, and apologized.

The city’s letter closed with language virtually identical to the one Abbott received from the Justice Department. Both sides called the issue “a matter of grave concern” and implored other to retain “any and all documents related to this incident, including, but not limited to, electronic messages, videotapes [and] telephone logs.”