Police Seek Horses to Outmaneuver Mall Thieves

Taking a cue from the old West, police in the West San Fernando Valley want to mount up and ride herd on crime around shopping malls in Canoga Park and Woodland Hills.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division is seeking mounted patrols during the Christmas shopping season at the parking lots of Topanga Plaza, the Woodland Hills Promenade and the Fallbrook Mall.

“You put a couple of horses in there and you have controlled the mall,” Capt. Forrest G. Llewelyn, the division’s patrol commander, said Tuesday. “They are big and intimidating and will dry up anything going on.”

Until now, officers from the Police Department’s 50-member mounted patrol have been used primarily for crowd control at special events such as the Los Angeles Street Scene and in congested areas such as Westwood.

Downtown Horse Patrols

But, two weeks ago, officials announced a three-month experiment in which horse patrols will supplement foot patrols in Los Angeles’ downtown business district.

Llewelyn, whose Reseda-based police division will submit its request for mounted officers later this week, said he is hopeful that there will be enough horses to go around Dec. 7, when he hopes to begin the mall patrols.

He said the horse patrols were proposed by Capt. John Higgins, who was in charge of mounted units before being reassigned recently as commander of the West Valley station.

The horses would be used to combat automobile break-ins at the three suburban shopping centers, Llewelyn said. During last year’s Christmas shopping season, 36 cars were reported stolen and 68 were broken into in the Topanga Plaza-Promenade area, according to police records.

Lt. Dave Aikins, head of the mounted unit, said 15 new officers will join the horse patrol Dec. 5. Members of the 6-year-old unit are volunteers who use their own horses.

Aikins said it is up to police administrators to decide whether any of the mounted officers will be assigned to the West Valley shopping centers.

Aikins said an impromptu horse patrol two years ago at Topanga Plaza proved that “officers can see people ripping off cars, and horses can get around parking lots fast.” In that instance, two West Valley officers volunteered to use their own horses to patrol the Canoga Park shopping center’s parking lot, he said.

One of them, Officer John Aitken, said he sat atop his quarter horse, Bucky, and was able to see some people cruising through the shopping center and looking for valuables inside cars.

“The visibility from a horse is unbelievable. It kept a lot of crime down,” Aitken said. “We didn’t catch anybody in the act, but we saw some of them before the act was committed. It was very preventive.”

Reactions Mixed

The proposal for a horse patrol drew mixed reactions Tuesday from mall operators--who first learned of the plans Monday night at a holiday crime prevention seminar staged by police and the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce.

“I can see where it would be a tremendous crime deterrent,” said Tom Seccomb, operations manager of the Fallbrook Mall in Canoga Park. “They would be an asset to our own security. I’d like to see them.”

But Keith Anderson, general manager of the Promenade Mall in Woodland Hills, said he has reservations about horses in his parking lot. Parking lot crime is not a significant problem at the upscale shopping center, he said.

“Customers don’t want an army walking around. Mounted police give that impression,” he said.

“I’d also worry about the cleanup. I wouldn’t want my customers stepping in it.”

Topanga Plaza officials declined to comment, although one worker stated that the cleanup issue “is the reason we don’t use horses in the parking lot.”

Horse patrolman Aitken said droppings are no problem, however.

“It’s totally biodegradable,” Aitken said. “In two days, it dries up and blows away.”