Man Charged in Shootings ‘Wants Out’ : Many in Neighborhood Desert ‘Drug War’

In November, Joe Grant took a gun and fired a shot that hit a woman he said was one of a number of drug dealers constantly working the intersection in front of his Pacoima home.

The woman was slightly injured, and Grant was arrested, but his act of frustration appeared to draw his neighbors together in outrage.

The night of the shooting, about 40 residents, some of whom had lived in the area almost 30 years, gathered near Grant’s home at Montford Street and Welk Avenue and promised to fight the drug plague that had beset their neighborhood.

As the meeting ended, gunshots were heard from a block away. Soon, a police helicopter hovered above, its searchlight sweeping the neighborhood in search of the trouble.

Perhaps heartened by the promises made at the neighborhood rally, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Gary Merrifield took an optimistic view of the gunshots as he stood with the residents.

“Maybe it was one last act of defiance,” he said.

Seven months later, however, residents and police say there are no last acts in this neighborhood’s battle. It is a “war zone,” said Grant, who has the bullet holes in his house and the arrest record to prove it.

Last week, he was once again arrested, this time for firing a shotgun at someone he said was shooting at his house. Three nights later, his house was hit with bullets in a drive-by shooting.

Despite the residents’ best intentions, Grant and others said problems continue in the neighborhood. And Grant said that it is the drug dealers who are showing the lasting power. He said some of his longtime neighbors have moved away this year, and he is hoping to be next.

“I want out of here,” he said. “I’m not afraid of the dealers, but I have a family I am afraid for, that I have to protect.”

Grant, 53, who lives with his wife, daughter and grandchild, may be an extreme example of the neighborhood’s frustration, but it is clear that there are other residents in the Montford Street area who feel they are under siege. People who publicly spoke of the neighborhood’s problems last year now prefer anonymity for fear of retribution.

“People are afraid,” explained a 25-year resident of the area. “The dealers are shooting up houses. I don’t want to be a target.”

That sentiment is far from those expressed the night of Nov. 8, when the residents rallied around Grant and said they would join together against the drug dealers.

‘Got Really Terrific’

Since then, however, no neighborhood meetings have followed, and the fervor of the residents has waned.

“It got really terrific. A lot a positive things happened after that,” said a woman who helped organize the rally. “Now it is quite different. I think people got too intimidated to get involved.”

Other residents said things have gone from bad to worse since the neighborhood meeting.

“Today, we couldn’t have a meeting like we did then,” one said. “You’d probably get killed standing out in the yard. They’d spray all the people to death with an Uzi.”

Residents described the Montford Street neighborhood as a place that is mostly peaceful by day but where gunfire and the subsequent cacophony of police helicopters is becoming routine by night.

“It’s like Little Vietnam on Saturday nights,” the 25-year resident said. In addition to Grant’s home, bullet holes are evident in at least one other house on the block.

Authorities acknowledge that neither the action of the residents nor police have made a permanent inroad into the problem of drug dealing in the area.

“Basically, not a lot has happened,” said Merrifield, Foothill Division’s community relations officer. “We are over in that area as often as we can be. But I would say the problem there is about status quo.”

Sgt. Cary Krebs, who heads an anti-drug unit assigned to the Foothill Division, said his six officers often make arrests in the Montford area and much of the open drug dealing on the street has been curtailed.

However, Krebs said that at least two homes in the neighborhood have operated on and off as drug houses in the last year. He noted that his unit is also responsible for attacking street narcotics sales throughout Pacoima and cannot concentrate solely on one neighborhood’s problems.

“We’ve hit the Montford area numerous times,” Krebs said. “We give it as much time as we can. The problem is down. It’s not as much as a stand-out-on-the-street-and-sell situation as it was. But there is still dope dealing going on there.”

Patrols Cruise Area

In addition to the neighborhood being a target of the anti-drug unit, police patrols routinely cruise the area and reserve officers often park on the street in an effort to keep drug dealing down, Merrifield said.

But police said that in the Montford area they face a law enforcement problem that they see in many areas: Police and neighborhood pressure is effective while it is there. As soon as it is gone, the problems creep back.

“Slowly but surely it comes back and mushrooms,” Merrifield said. “It starts all over again.”

Merrifield said residents in the Montford area have to become more involved with police if the drug problem is to be quelled. Neighborhood meetings have to be regularly scheduled, a Crime Watch program strengthened and a strong front against drug dealers and buyers must be forged.

“Neighbors have got to stay involved,” he said. “They can’t have one meeting and think it is all done.”

Police and most residents are quick to note that the action Grant is charged with taking on two occasions is not the way to go.

“What he did has drawn attention to the problems there but I’m afraid he dug himself a hole,” Merrifield said.

Grant is scheduled to go to trial Monday for assault with a deadly weapon stemming from the Nov. 8 shooting incident. But authorities said the case will likely be delayed because of his arrest June 11 on charges that he fired a shotgun into the street, slightly injuring a man Grant said had fired a gun at his house. Grant, who is free on bail, was charged Friday with assault with a deadly weapon.

Residents said they need a greater police presence in the neighborhood and a more in-depth investigation of drug sales than simply responding to complaints.

Calls to Police

The tradition of calling police and reporting drug activity or gunshots has not helped, residents said, because police often take too long to arrive and most often have to catch someone committing a crime to make an arrest. Neither of the people Grant is charged with shooting were arrested because police say they could find no evidence they committed a crime.

“I have called the police regularly,” Grant said. “All the people who call police and try to get something done usually end up getting something done to them” by the suspected drug dealers.

“There are bullet holes in my house,” Grant said, a statement corroborated by police. “They have been shooting around here for months, and I get harassed 24 hours a day. What is happening now makes what was going on back in November look like heaven.”

An example of how much of an upper hand the suspected dealers appear to have is seen in the practice of the 25-year resident who said he routinely calls police, but does so anonymously so drug dealers don’t see patrol cars stopping in front of his house.

“If you are foolish enough to give your name you might get your house shot up,” he said.

The result of the problems in the area is that some residents have been trying to leave. Grant said he has counted four neighbors who have moved in the last year, though new families have moved in to take their places.

Beset by legal problems and growing frustration, Grant said he has put his house up for sale and is already building a new one in Sylmar. He hopes to leave Montford Street after 17 years by the end of July--”if I’m still alive.”

But others said they won’t or can’t move. The woman who helped organize the rally in November is a 29-year resident. She said she won’t move.

“I don’t say ‘Move,’ I say ‘Stay and improve,’ ” she said. We should stay here and band together.

“It is not a no-win situation. If everyone took interest in their own home and neighborhood, I feel this could be a beautiful community.”

For others, there is no choice but to stay and face the problems. The man who has lived in the neighborhood 25 years said the problems of the area have reduced property values. He said if he sold his home he would only be able to afford another in a neighborhood with the same problems.

“Our problems here are not unique,” he said. “This is happening all over. If I sell here, if I could sell here, where am I going to go?”