Code Enforcement:

Woman owing city ﬁnes on property has a theory on curious ﬁre

Leila Navidi

Dedra Edmond prays as she stands on the West Las Vegas property where a fire three years ago damaged the home her grandfather had built in the early 1940s. Edmond believes she was the likely victim of payback for a police officer’s death after his killer posed for photos at the site, without permission, for a rap album.

By Sam Skolnik (contact)

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Download the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue report from 2006

COURTESY PHOTO

CD cover by Amir Crump, the aspiring rapper who shot and killed Sgt. Henry Prendes in 2006.

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418 Jackson

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Dedra Edmond has long dreamed of rebuilding on the West Las Vegas site on which her pioneering grandfather, beginning in the early 1940s, built a house, a malt shop and a small hotel.

But first she has to untangle the lien placed on her property by Las Vegas, the result of a record number of code violations — and potential fines — because of chronic neglect.

The property had become such a nuisance, the city tore down the three buildings on the site last year.

But her problems began before that. Three years ago a mysterious fire damaged the old family home.

She claims, without proof, that the fire was set deliberately after her property was used as a backdrop for the cover photo of a CD by a local rapper who later killed Metro Police Sgt. Henry Prendes.

The fire badly damaged the house on 418 Jackson Ave. on Feb. 7, 2006. It was the very day that Prendes, the first Metro officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1988, was buried.

According to Edmond, the timing suggests that law enforcers, or their supporters, might have torched her house as a symbolic act of revenge against the rapper, Amir Crump.

An arson investigation discounted Edmond’s theory, and the city, which holds the lien on the property, is set to take it over if she doesn’t pay off her debt in the next couple of years.

The cause of the blaze has remained a mystery. City arson investigators labeled it “undetermined.”

Edmond, a Las Vegas native and Strip blackjack dealer, says she suffered a nervous breakdown last year because of lingering stress over the incident.

•••

Prendes was ambushed and shot to death Feb. 1, 2006, by Crump at a Spring Valley home after responding to a call that a man there was assaulting his girlfriend.

Crump, 21, a rapper who performed under the name “Trajik,” fired more than 40 rounds during the shootout with police before he was killed.

The following week, as police were conducting a full-dress funeral for Prendes, 911 dispatchers were taking calls about a fire at 418 Jackson.

Crump’s group, Desert Mobb, had taken photographs on that property to use for the cover of their CD. Edmond and Crump’s rap partner, Ernest King, say that Crump had no connection to the Edmond family.

King said the two were looking for a cover photo that represented a part of Las Vegas that was as far away as possible from the glamour of the Strip. The Edmond property, not far from where King’s mother lived in the historically black and poor neighborhood of West Las Vegas, fit the bill, he said.

“We just hopped the fence and took about 10 photos” before leaving.

King said he was watching Prendes’ funeral on television when he heard a helicopter flying above. He looked outside and saw smoke from the Jackson Avenue fire.

“It was kind of awkward,” he said. “I felt in my heart that maybe it did have something to do with the officer’s funeral.”

A month after the shooting, then-Sheriff Bill Young said: “The gentleman who killed Sgt. Prendes clearly had a gangsta rap album out. He had on the cover of that album a picture of himself looking out a window with an AK-47. Looking and waiting.”

The photo Young was referring to was in the CD’s liner notes, not the cover photo of the Jackson Avenue property. Nevertheless, the theory that police believed the Jackson Avenue property was connected to Crump and burned it down as an act of retaliation was mentioned at some length – and ultimately rejected – in the city fire department’s arson report. The theory had first been raised by Crump’s family and friends.

“This fire occurred on the same day as the officer’s funeral. There is no evidence at this time that indicates that this is an arson fire and that this fire was ignited for symbolism of this prior Metro event that resulted in the two deaths,” the fire department report concluded.

Investigators said blame for the blaze likely lay with transients who smoked cigarettes and possibly processed drugs over an open flame inside the burned building. But they did not search for accelerants by using a specially trained dog. A city spokeswoman said in a statement that investigators concluded that fire patterns at the scene did not dictate the use of a dog.

Edmond said that she doesn’t know for certain who set the blaze, but the coincidence is difficult to ignore. She thinks the fire-starters were police officers or their supporters — and that their misplaced payback has taken a toll on innocent people.

“Someone lashed out at the wrong person, and now a whole other family is hurting,” she said.

Metro spokesman John Loretto said of Edmond’s speculation: “We’re not going to add any credibility to the story, so we’re not going to participate.”

•••

Code enforcement officers had told Edmond a month before the fire to clean up her property, which was attracting vagrants and litter.

The site had become dangerous and the situation untenable, Neighborhood Response Division Manager Devin Smith said. After 44 inspections, city officials last year ordered the three buildings on the site demolished.

According to Smith, Edmond had long been unresponsive to officials’ concerns. “We couldn’t get her to react,” he said.

Edmond, 44, who said she has tried to get a loan to restore the property and otherwise did what she could to maintain it, said she still would like to revitalize the site, perhaps by opening a mini-mall including a restaurant.

The house on the property – the building that caught fire – was built by her grandfather, Clay Jeffery Johnson in the early 1940s, after Johnson moved from Texas to find work.

Johnson, who Edmond said was the first black skycap at McCarran International Airport, also opened a popular restaurant on the site – Johnson’s Malt Shop – and later became a pastor.

The City Council has cut the potential fines she owes on the property from $426,550 to $12,974. Still, Edmond said she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to pay the city’s bill. But she’s trying to think beyond that.

“I have to go ahead and finish what he started,” Edmond said of her grandfather. “It’s about what happened to the property my grandfather built.”

Discussion: 11 comments so far…

By I_Love_Las_Vegas

6/2/09 at 5:44 a.m.

Suggest removal

Rap: How to make money in the music industry without making any music.
By LasVegas2009

6/2/09 at 7:42 a.m.

Suggest removal

She should pay the full amount of $426,550 for letting the property rot to the condition it was in. I don't understand why the city does not go after her assets for the money owed. She is just a dirt bag that wont pay what she owes. The city should go after the full amount. Chance is she is not going to pay a nickle anyway.
By goingbust

6/2/09 at 11:10 a.m.

Suggest removal

"She should pay the full amount of $426,550 for letting the property rot to the condition it was in. I don't understand why the city does not go after her assets for the money owed. She is just a dirt bag that wont pay what she owes. The city should go after the full amount. Chance is she is not going to pay a nickle anyway."

:lol:

You think she has that kind of money? Do YOU have that kind of money? She's looking for a loan to rebuild there, I doubt she is rolling in dough. Frankly, that parcel, in that area of town, is unlikely worth the $13K the city is currently asking for. Probably it will continue to be an eyesore and the city will continue to assess fines that cannot be paid.
By Ds_Gentle_Master

6/2/09 at 1:01 p.m.

Suggest removal

The city (us - the taxpapyers) should send her a bill for the 44 inspections and the cost of demolition.
By Unk

6/2/09 at 1:43 p.m.

Suggest removal

You know what we need to spend $25 million doing? creating a way Las Vegas residents can more easily access these scenic places like Jackson st and F more easily. How about we build a new road there?

After that we can spend $250 million building a new City Hall we don't need so these Yo-Yos have a new spot to tag and tale pictures of themselves in front of.

BTW the creature who killed Sgt. Prendes still has a website...i.e.cyber urinal.
http://www.myspace.com/desertmobb
By whats_in_the_box

6/2/09 at 3:32 p.m.

Suggest removal

How can city arson investigators discount a theory about the fire if the cause is "undetermined"?

What are the names of these genius investigators who while being "undetermined" about the cause can discount it being arson.
By whats_in_the_box

6/2/09 at 3:36 p.m.

Suggest removal

Hell of a coincidence it burns down the same day as the funeral. Sounds like retaliation to me.

I give the thread back to the racists..
By Todays_the_Day

6/2/09 at 6:31 p.m.

Suggest removal

"According to Edmond, the timing suggests that law enforcers, or their supporters, might have torched her house as a symbolic act of revenge against the rapper, Amir Crump." Wow, seriously lady?? Must you reach so far into the "suna" of racism? (backward spelling deliberate). It's people like you that feed racism and hatred towards law enforcement. Got anything race-righteous to say about the death of Officer Manor?
By Todays_the_Day

6/2/09 at 6:43 p.m.

Suggest removal

"Dedra Edmond prays as she stands on the West Las Vegas property where a fire three years ago damaged the home her grandfather had built in the early 1940s. Edmond believes she was the likely victim of payback for a police officer's death after his killer posed for photos at the site, without permission, for a rap album." Though shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, sister.
By KillerB

6/2/09 at 9:48 p.m.

Suggest removal

"The city (us - the taxpapyers) should send her a bill for the 44 inspections and the cost of demolition."

Ds_Gentle_Master -- did you see anything in this article even hinting the lady invited those inspectors on her property? Or that any of them had warrants? Or invited the city to demolish her property? Or that the City provide some service at her bidding to obligate the City to be paid anything?

The Constitutions clearly prohibits any government from taking private property without just compensation. That's what your beloved City did here, and she's the one who's owed. The fact City covered it up with the legal fiction of creating a debt out of thin air doesn't change any of that.
By Rocco

6/3/09 at 6:03 a.m.

Suggest removal

nice...its funny how secure people are that that same kind of thing wont happen to them....some nice institutional corruption......oh I'm sure the Police has nothing to do with it ?????LOL