Increased crime causes residents to voice opinions
GRANT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — The Sunset Park community has had enough of crime.
Concerned about what seems like increasing incidents of gang violence and crime in the Sunset Park neighborhood, residents decided it was time to speak out to the officials who can affect change.
About 30 residents gathered at a Town Hall-style meeting at Grant Elementary School on Wednesday to voice their concerns and frustrations to a panel that included Capt. Alex Padilla of the Santa Monica Police Department; Taffany Lim, an expert on law enforcement training and community policing; former mayor Nat Trives, who facilitated the event; newly elected Mayor Richard Bloom and Mayor Pro Tem Herb Katz.
Collectively, Katz and Bloom have lived in Sunset Park for 72 years. If you live in a community long enough, you experience crime over time, Bloom said.
“I think we probably all agree it’s not enough to live in a statistically safe community,” Bloom said. “We need to feel safe as a community, too.”
The consensus from the attendees was that there is a need for more police officers in Sunset Park. Resident Stephanie Furlong asked to see more policing in her area, no matter what it takes.
Furlong listed the incidents that have occurred on her block alone in the past few months — murder, gang brawls, home break-ins and car vandalism. Last month, a purse was stolen from a car while the owner was sitting in it, Furlong said.
“As residents of Sunset Park, we’re constantly given rhetoric that we live in a safe community,” Furlong said.
Trives said statistics show that crimes have decreased since he was on the force in the 1950s, but Wendy Cohen, whose husband organized the event, said she actually thinks violent crimes are on the rise.
Fay Lyons, a 10-year resident of Sunset Park, agreed that gang violence has worsened during the decade she has lived in the area.
“It’s one gang-related activity after the other,” she said. Sunset Park has become so dangerous, most neighbors refused to answer the door when Lyons and her neighbor, Zina Josephs, the president of the Friends of Sunset Park, went door-to-door a few years ago warning residents about a string of robberies in the area.
Many of the crimes committed in Sunset Park are “opportunistic” crimes, Padilla said. These include the majority of crimes committed by gangs.
“It’s not solely a policing problem,” Padilla said. “We understand we are part of the bigger community. We try to keep the community informed as to what’s occurring. It’s always a work in progress.”
Statistically, more police presence, though it might evoke a perception of safety, does not make an area any safer, said Lim, who is a project coordinator at the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.
One of the biggest issues raised Wednesday night was police procedure during crisis situations in neighborhoods near schools. The concern was sparked by a recent incident when Grant Elementary School was locked down after school in late October while Santa Monica Police were in the midst of a stolen car chase outside.
Police responded to a call of a stolen vehicle and followed the car to the 2000 block of Pearl Street. In trying to evade officers, the driver of the stolen vehicle lost control and crashed into a tree. The driver and a passenger both fled on foot and ran through several backyards, prompting the police to establish a perimeter, call in a LAPD helicopter, and school officials to lock down the school. The suspects were later arrested.
One woman said she saw about 10 to 15 police cars outside the school and heard the chopper overhead as she saw children playing out in the schoolyard. She grabbed her daughter and left the school as soon as possible.
“Everything was going on as normal in the school,” the woman said.“There was some kind of delay in time for those kids in the yard.”
But Principal Al Friedenberg called the lockdown a “textbook job.” It’s hard to explain why the school was not locked down 60 seconds earlier, he said.
“Once we determined this was a dangerous situation, we did what we were trained to do,” Friedenberg said.
SMPD does have procedures in place on how to react to dangerous situations. Schools are not required to wait for a call from the police department before taking action either, Padilla said.
For Judy Palnick, she wants to see a procedure put in place so that car chases in neighborhoods are kept under control.
“The issue is having a policy that puts all of us in safety,” Palnick said. “These situations spiral out of control.”
The incident in October was what sparked interest among community leaders to hold a forum on crime in Sunset Park.
“There’s been break-ins, drive-by shootings, sexual assaults, and then the school lockdown,”said organizer Brent Cohen. “I live steps away from here and it rattled my nerves.
“That was the tipping point.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 8, 2006. Read the original PDF.