Police to Seek INS Raids Near Bryant-Vanalden Complex : Plagued Units to Get More Patrols

Los Angeles police said Tuesday night that they will increase patrols at the crime-plagued Bryant-Vanalden apartment development in Northridge and ask for raids to find illegal aliens in the area.

The three-block area of run-down apartment buildings has been the focus of a controversial city plan to evicting the 3,000 predominantly low-income Latino residents to make room for construction of a gated, middle-class apartment complex.

Capt. Mark Stevens, who announced the plan for stepped-up patrols to more than 100 Northridge residents gathered at a Neighborhood Watch meeting, said a lieutenant will be assigned full time to coordinate the effort.

Stevens said that police will ask the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to conduct raids at street corners in the area where dozens of men, many of them believed to be illegal aliens, gather every morning to be picked up for day labor.

“We are going to ask them to look at the corners in the early morning hours and explain just what they can do for us,” he said.

Stevens said the corner of Bryant Street and Vanalden Avenue frequently is the scene of crimes such as public drinking and indecent exposure.

Police have said the apartment development is the worst crime area in the Devonshire Division. Stevens said that at least two more patrol cars will be diverted to the area on weekend nights.

In addition, he said, officers will begin to walk through apartment buildings and report flagrant building violations to the city Department of Building and Safety.