Gang Party Broken Up in Garage at New Mall

Police have rousted from 75 to 100 reputed gang members from the parking structure of the new Hermosa Beach Pavilion mall, authorities said Thursday.

They said officers, responding to complaints of excessive noise, found the youths partying at the lowest subterranean level of the structure last Friday.

A male and a female police officer, who drove into the structure in their squad car, ordered the party to end and the youths dispersed without further incident “except for an exchange of words,” an official said. He said the area was littered with broken bottles and other refuse.

Reports of the incident, which occurred at about 10 p.m. last Friday, surfaced Thursday and were confirmed by Public Safety Director Steve Wisniewski. He declined to release the names of the investigating officers.

Wisniewski said the officers descended to the third underground level of the five-level structure, where the surrounding metal and concrete blocked radio communication with the police station and other squad cars.

That, he said, has caused some concern for the officers’ safety and prompted him to meet with the mall managers Thursday afternoon to ask them to install radio receivers and an antenna in the parking structure.

The added equipment would pick up signals from the officers’ car or walkie-talkie radios and retransmit them on police bands, he said.

He said the managers were concerned about the problem and said they would look into the possibility of installing the equipment. He said the company also plans to review security measures.

The Pavilion, located at Pacific Coast Highway and 16th Street, is still under construction, but a theater complex and at least two shops have opened.

Councilman Roger Creighton said owners of the Pavilion and any similar structure “should feel obliged to provide whatever equipment is needed to deal with a situation like this. We can’t expect emergency personnel, whether fire or police or paramedics, to go into places where they can’t call for backup if it’s needed.”

The male and female party-goers in the Pavilion structure belonged to East Los Angeles gangs, according to one source, but Wisniewski declined to characterize them as other than gang members, based on his officers’ experience with the typical dress, manner and language of such groups.

He said the Pavilion incident was the first there or anywhere else in the city involving a large number of gang members. “Sporadically, we have disturbance calls involving small groups in the downtown and beach areas,” he said. “But they have not been a significant problem.”

Wisniewski said there is “moderate concern” that inner-city gangs, under pressure from law enforcement agencies in their areas, may move their activities to the beach cities. But, he added, he has seen little evidence of it.

Manhattan Beach Police Lt. Robert Cashion said officers there also “are concerned and alert to a gang presence, but we have not observed any evidence that gangs are trying to become a part of Manhattan Beach. They do drive through, and we see graffiti from time to time.”