Although some jurisdictions around the country, including Cook County, Ill., have suspended foreclosure evictions, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has not. As sworn officers of the court, Cohen and Munoz said they have little leeway in carrying out the evictions.
On this morning, they gave Enciso a few more minutes to get his things, then told the locksmith to change the locks.
Then they signed the house over to Ryan Quintana, who works for a real estate agency that represents several banks.
Quintana seemed nervous as he signed the forms. "This is my first one . . . my first eviction," he said, adding that he hopes this business will augment his other job, selling tequila. "It's never comfortable kicking somebody out of their house."
He also said that he had visited Enciso, the man being evicted, a few months earlier to offer him money to get out -- an inducement known as "cash for keys." Quintana said he warned the man to stop paying rent.
But Quintana does not speak Spanish, and Enciso apparently did not understand him. So instead of being paid to leave his home, a clearly distressed Enciso was forced to carry his possessions out in his bare feet as the deputies watched.
Munoz nodded sympathetically. "I wouldn't know what cash for keys meant if I didn't do this job," he said.
But the deputies did not have time to tarry. They had 10 more evictions to do. The rest were routine -- insofar as it is ever routine to bust into recently abandoned homes, survey the sad mixture of broken toys and children's shoes left behind, search for trespassers and then move on.
Some of the houses were left in relatively decent shape.
Others had clearly been trashed, perhaps in rage.
At one house, an agent who was representing the bank that had foreclosed breathed a sigh of relief when Munoz and Cohen told him the house was empty.
He was prepared to confront the family, he said. They had young children and the last time he had seen them, they said they had nowhere to go.
Entering one particularly unkempt house, Munoz nodded and announced one of his cardinal rules: Never open the refrigerator. Especially if it is unplugged.
At another house, Cohen, seeing that the locksmith was having trouble, leaned over, took the man's hammer and helped him break the lock. Cohen has seen it done so often that he's become an expert.
