Faded Dreams : Drug-Ridden Carson Complex Struggles to Return From Rock Bottom

In 1964, the 600-unit Scottsdale Town Homes development was hailed as a pioneering condominium community--complete with pool, playground, meeting room and security system.

“Southern California real estate history was written last week,” a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times enthused, as developer Ray Watt turned the complex over to the association of town-home owners.

But today, that bright beginning is history: the Carson complex is struggling to ward off a reputation as a war zone and drug bazaar.

“It started off as the ideal living community for condos,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Solomon Patton, who patrolled Scottsdale for years. “The concept was a great concept. Then it began to deteriorate.”

Now, says Lt. Steve Switzer, “It is unbelievable, kind of like Dodge City in the 1860s.”

Some are fighting back.

Residents set up a Community Watch last year. About that time, the Sheriff’s Department cracked down on drug salesmen, who used to perch like vultures on a concrete block wall fronting Avalon Boulevard. Renters--with less stake in the community--are slowly being replaced by homeowners, who once again are showing interest in living at Scottsdale.

During the daytime, the complex, despite a few peeling paint jobs, looks like any of a number of compounds considered decent places to live. Lawns are well trimmed. Streets and sidewalks are clear of trash. Graffiti is freshly painted over. Children play outdoors after school. A pickup basketball game is always under way on the courts.

But a series of recent incidents paints a troubling picture of violence and crime lurking beneath that facade of normality.

For one thing, the crackdown on the wall-perching drug salesmen has not eliminated the sale of narcotics, residents and deputies agree.

It merely drove them inside the complex, where they conduct their business mostly hassle-free--thanks to the security of a single gated entrance and a well-organized system of whistling lookouts, according to Solomon and Sgt. Harry Marco, head of narcotics at the Carson substation of the Sheriff’s Department.

“It is hard to do surveillance and hard to put undercover people in there,” Marco said.

Outsiders Attracted

After the first and 15th of the month--the dates welfare checks are distributed--drug sales pick up and violence is most likely to break out, deputies say. Illicit activities in the compound appear to have attracted outsiders.

About 10 p.m. on Jan. 16, one security guard was shot to death and another wounded in the worst recent violence at the compound. Mark Anthony Dyer, 21, a Long Beach man who had been visiting Scottsdale, was charged with murder and attempted murder and remains in custody. The security manager said he may seek permission for his guards to carry guns.

“Scottsdale,” said Sanele Tuiteleleapaga, a spokesman for Prostaf Security Service, “generally has been a very tough assignment for us.”

The fatal shooting and more recent events indicate a severe ongoing problem:

About 2 a.m. Thursday, a Harbor City woman driving by Scottsdale on Avalon Boulevard stopped at the traffic light at the entrance to Scottsdale. She had her windows rolled down.

“Two guys from Scottsdale jumped over the wall of the shopping center, ran up to her car, reached in through her partially open driver’s window, hit her, dragged her out of the car, threw her to the ground, kicked her a few times and stole her car,” Switzer said.

The car was later found wrecked in Harbor City. Police are also investigating it as a sexual assault.

On March 4, shortly after 9 a.m., two residents looked outside and saw some youths carrying shotguns and a rifle. They called police.

“It looked like Guns ‘R’ Us had a sale,” said Switzer.

Derrick Breedon, 17, a Carson High School 10th-grader who lives in Scottsdale, said he was there.

“Some dudes tried to sell some guns,” he said. “I said I didn’t want to buy them, but I know somebody in here (who) probably wants to buy them.”

Police booked Larry Tanks, 18, of Long Beach; James Absher, 19, of Carson, and two juveniles on suspicion of burglary and receiving stolen property. They recovered four shotguns and a rifle that had been stolen earlier that day from a home in Carson.

On March 3, Ervin Kingsbury, a former board member of the Scottsdale Town Homes Assn., said he was at home on Dovecote Lane watching a night basketball game when he heard his wife, who had just changed into her nightclothes upstairs, shout, “Get out of here!”

Five youths had chased a man into his house, he said.

“Mister, don’t let them kill me,” the man pleaded, according to Kingsbury.

Kingsbury said he escorted the man to the wall at Avalon Boulevard and, on the way, the man confessed that he had been buying crack at Scottsdale for more than a year, never had any trouble, and had come to buy a $50 rock. But that night, dealers he did not know tried to rob him of the hundreds of dollars he was carrying, the man told Kingsbury.

“He had a look like he had seen the devil,” Kingsbury said. “His legs were shaking, his hands, he was shaking all over.”

The man got over the fence and ran across busy Avalon Boulevard without waiting for a break in traffic. “The cars had to slide. I heard brakes screeching,” Kingsbury said.

The day before that, two gun-toting men, apparently seeking revenge after a robbery, were shot in Scottsdale.

Switzer said Carson resident Raymond Orozco, 30, who does not live in Scottsdale, was robbed of $40 by one man while another tried to steal his van. Orozco returned to Scottsdale with Stephen Schad, 32, of San Pedro, and began looking for his antagonists. The two were armed, according to Switzer.

“They are there about five minutes. They don’t see the guys and they are walking back to the van and this guy comes out of nowhere and the shooting begins,” Switzer said. Perhaps half a dozen shots were fired, and Orozco and Schad were wounded. The other man got away.

Orozco and Shad were booked on suspicion of conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon, Switzer said. No one else has been arrested.

The first election to the board of the Scottsdale Town Homes Assn. reflects the upwardly mobile character of the first residents. The candidates included a banker, a municipal financial consultant, a minister, several engineers, an insurance broker and a real estate agent.

But Carson City Administrator Dick Gunnarson said the complex, built in what was then unincorporated Los Angeles County, was not held to development and construction standards used later, and so its units did not appreciate in value in the 1970s and early ‘80s as did townhouses in complexes built to more exacting standards.

Nonetheless, it had few problems, deputies and residents say, until the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Ruth Rumery, a Scottsdale resident and real estate agent who has made it a personal crusade to restore respectability to Scottsdale, is among several who trace the downturn to the effect of high interest rates during that period.

Residents who wanted to move could not sell, and people who wanted to buy could not get bank financing, she said. Many who moved away rented out their units, often to low-income tenants whose rent subsidies meant security for the rent, she said.

She added that the long-term answer to Scottsdale’s problems may come from the financial forces that caused its deterioration. Sharp increases in real estate prices throughout Southern California, coupled with affordable mortgages, are attracting “quality” people to Scottsdale, according to Rumery.

Even though she has the unenviable task of trying to sell units next door to rock houses, she said prices are rising, going from $47,000 to $50,000 for a three-bedroom unit in 1985 to $75,000 to $85,000 today.

When a rental unit becomes vacant, she said that she tries to get the owner to sell to someone who will live in it. Since 1985, the number of rental units has dropped from about 210 to 160.

But many in the complex are pinning hopes for a comeback on community efforts to combat crime.

Sheriff’s Deputy Patton said that the Community Watch program at Scottsdale has about 30 members and that deputies get frequent calls from residents about crime.

“They are starting to fight back,” he said.

At the Scottsdale community hall, a flyer taped to the front door urges people to “turn in a pusher. . . . Drugs are just as deadly as a loaded gun!” On the bulletin board, a copy of the state law making it a felony to fortify a house for drug sales is tacked up. Next to it, a newsletter concedes that “drugs are still a problem,” but advises: “Remember, nothing can be sold unless someone buys.”

Some residents who are part of the effort said they preferred not to be identified, but Rumery, for one, makes a point of not being intimidated.

“I can walk the streets at 10 p.m. If you smile and have a positive attitude, it goes a long way,” she said.