the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Feb 9, 2009
On the morning of January 26, Ervin and Ana Lupoe and their five children, ages between two and eight, were found shot to death in the family’s home in Wilmington, near Los Angeles. A few days before, Kaiser hospital in West L.A. had fired the couple, both medical technicians, for forging a supervisor’s signature on a childcare application. Apparently, the Lupoes were trying to get subsidized childcare by showing their income lower than it was.
The Lupoes had a mortgage debt of over $600,000 on a house that is now worth less than $400,000. And police found a bounced check for $15,000, made out to the IRS, in the Lupoes’ home.
Economic pressures, exacerbated by the ongoing economic crisis, played a part in this tragedy. And it was probably not for the first time. This was the fifth mass death of a family by murder or suicide in Southern California within a year.