Tall Law and Order

Mounted policemen will soon start patrolling two streets in downtown Los Angeles where street crime is on the rise. The mounties, part of an experimental program to reassure shoppers and shopkeepers, will be paid for by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency. They will be a welcome sight.

Drug sales, robberies, muggings and purse-snatchings, are increasing in the target area bounded by Spring Street and Broadway between 2nd and 9th streets. Drunks, panhandlers and sidewalk-sleepers add to a tawdry air that could sap the economic health of the district.

Mayor Tom Bradley noted the increase in crime last summer in a letter to the Los Angeles Police Commission, pointing out its threat to the $939-million public and private investment spent or committed to the area during the past nine years. Of that amount, the CRA has funneled $70 million into a 13.5-block area. The mayor’s letter led to increased enforcement efforts, of which the Los Angeles Police Department’s mounted patrol will be the most visible.

For three months, four to six mounted officers will be added to foot patrols in the area. If the patrols work, the redevelopment agency may ask the city to budget for permanent mounted patrols.

The agency is counting on the very presence of the mounted officers to make urban outlaws more than willing to move along, and on the visibility and mobility of the mounted patrol to demonstrate to people who live, work or shop in the area that protection is at hand.

The mayor and members of the CRA recognize that it takes more than bricks and mortar, more than gleaming new buildings to revitalize the historic downtown district. The mounted patrol is part of the response, one that will protect people as well as the investment in the future of downtown Los Angeles.