Bryant-Vanalden : Police Beef Up Task Force for Northridge

Ten more officers have been assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division to round out a 12-officer task force that in about two weeks will begin patrolling the crime-ridden Bryant Street-Vanalden Avenue neighborhood of Northridge, police said.

The task force will put an even more visible police presence in the area than they did in last weekend’s drug crackdown, when 91 arrests were made in the three-block neighborhood, Capt. Mark D. Stevens said this week.

“Residents will see a significant increase in police activity,” Stevens said. “The task force will take a strong enforcement approach to all criminal activity they see.”

The task force, which will include four or five police cruisers during peak crime hours at night and on weekends, will begin patrols on Dec. 9, Stevens said. He said the task force, which has been authorized for a year, will target drug sales, traffic violations and public drinking.

Six Speak Spanish

At least six of the officers speak Spanish, Stevens said, and the others, because the area is a heroin-dealing center, will have experience in policing narcotics. He said 40% of the crime in the Devonshire Division, which covers the northwest San Fernando Valley, stems from the Bryant-Vanalden area.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates ordered the task force last month at the request of City Councilman Hal Bernson, who had asked the chief in a letter to “give Bryant-Vanalden the same consideration as Nickerson Gardens,” a high-crime South-Central Los Angeles housing project where there is a 29-officer task force.

Over the summer, the Bryant-Vanalden area was the focus of Bernson’s controversial neighborhood renewal plan to make it easier for landlords to evict the mostly low-income Latino tenants so that the apartments could be converted into a gated, middle-class community.

After opposition from many civic groups and Mayor Tom Bradley, however, Bernson tabled the proposal.

Representatives of a tenants’ group in the development and a Neighborhood Watch group of nearby homeowners, both of which have complained about crime in the area, say they hope the task force will begin to alleviate the problem.

‘They Will Be Arrested’

“People are going to have to understand that, if they are out in the front of their apartment drinking, if they are involved in drugs, if they double park, they will be arrested,” said Raul Morales, president of Padres Unidos (United Parents), a tenant group that has met with police to discuss crime problems.

“It’s gotten to the point that people park their cars on their front lawns because there are so many accidents, speeders and drunk drivers in the area,” said Bonnie Siegal, head of the Neighborhood Watch group. “We are hoping the police can begin to force out the bad element.”