Gangs, Drugs Reappear on Blythe Street : Old Enemies Return After Police Disband Task Force

The group of seven young men stood on the curb on Blythe Street in Panorama City, taking friendly jabs at one another, striking tough-guy poses and just waiting. One teen-ager even brought a kitchen chair, set it at the curb and sat back in the afternoon sun.

A new station wagon slowly made its way along the graffiti-marred block and stopped in front of the gathering. Two of the youths rushed to the car’s windows and leaned in. Words were passed, then money. Change was handed back to the driver, along with a small bag of what appeared to be marijuana.

The station wagon headed off, and the young men went back to the curb.

It has been less than four months since a Los Angeles Police Department task force that targeted the half-mile stretch of Blythe Street was disbanded, but police and residents say drug dealers and gangs are beginning to make a comeback in the neighborhood.

Police Target

From July, 1987, until May of this year, Blythe, from Van Nuys Boulevard to Brimfield Avenue, was the target of the 13-officer Narcotics Enforcement Detail, as well as a variety of neighborhood-improvement efforts by the city and apartment owners and residents.

And by all accounts, the campaign was successful. The task force officers made more than 500 arrests. Drug dealers and gang members were forced off the curbs of the apartment-lined street, and the neighborhood lost its distinction as a drive-through drug market.

“Blythe Street was pretty clean when we left,” said Sgt. John Preston, one of the task force’s supervisors.

But like weeds cut down but not uprooted, drug peddlers once again await customers on the curbs along Blythe. The neighborhood is again marked with graffiti. And residents, who a year ago saw vast improvements, now say the neighborhood is sliding back.

“Things got good here; now I think they are getting worse again,” said a longtime resident who last year allowed the officers to use her apartment to secretly watch drug dealers. She asked not to be identified because she fears reprisals from gang members and drug peddlers.

“I get up two, three times a night when I hear things, shots,” she said. “In the day I see the boys on bikes, looking out for the drug dealers. I call the police so much they must know my voice. Soon it will be like there was no difference.”

Graffiti Removed

While the NED unit was around, curbside parking was eliminated so police would have a clear view of the street, and most of the graffiti were removed by resident groups.

Police gang and narcotics squads have increased patrols on Blythe since the task force was disbanded. But police concede that crime is on the increase in the neighborhood of mostly low-income families and new immigrants, many of whom live in crowded apartments and are unemployed.

“It is getting kind of rough there again,” said Sgt. Jim Flavin, in charge of an anti-gang unit that patrols Blythe. “When the NED guys pulled out, the gang guys pulled back in.”

David Combs, a manager of a Blythe Street apartment building, said gangs and drug dealers have boldly stepped forward in recent months to reclaim the street. He said gang members attempt to intimidate residents who want to clean up the neighborhood.

“The gang members run this street,” he said. “A lot of people are scared, and you can’t blame them. It’s a constant battle on Blythe Street. The Police Department does what it can, but the drug dealing and the gangs are all still here. The task force isn’t.”

A visitor to the neighborhood is greeted by symbols of local gang members: 8-foot-high letters--BST--are painted on the side wall of a furniture store at Blythe and Van Nuys Boulevard. The monogram, short for Blythe Street, is shared by two gangs that coexist in the neighborhood, the Dukes and the Cyclones. Graffiti--slogans, nicknames, caricatures--cover neighborhood walls and fences. Almost nothing is spared.

Police could not provide crime statistics for the neighborhood--departmental statistics are kept for a wider area. But there are other indications that crime is up.

“They are still dealing on Blythe,” said Sgt. Mario Mascolo, a supervisor of a Valley narcotics unit. “We go by there all the time.”

Residents’ complaints about crime routinely are called to Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s office, said Irene Slater, a deputy for the councilman, whose district includes the neighborhood.

“We constantly receive complaints about dope and gangs,” she said. “You clean up the place, and they come right back in.”

Slater said she regularly visits Blythe Street to check on complaints and talk to residents and apartment managers about problems. She said young drug dealers often approach her car asking if she wants to buy marijuana. She keeps her car doors locked.

In May, there was an attempted murder on Blythe, which police believe occurred when a motorist tried to “take the dime” from two drug dealers. Police said the motorist grabbed drugs from the dealers and sped off without paying. He drove to Willis Avenue but could not escape because of a concrete roadblock placed across Blythe by the city two years ago to discourage drive-through drug dealing.

When the drug thief turned his car around and tried to drive past the dealers, police said, a steel pipe was hurled into the car. The driver was seriously injured but survived. Police see the incident as further evidence of the neighborhood’s problems.

Authorities are puzzled about what, if anything, can be done to stop the neighborhood’s decline.

While the task force was a successful operation, the unit was only a temporary solution to the neighborhood’s problems, said Deputy Police Chief Ronald A. Frankle. Its members, who were borrowed from police divisions throughout the Valley, worked full time on Blythe for nine months and then split time between the neighborhood and other drug hot spots in the Valley for another year, he said. The unit was disbanded in April.

It is unlikely that another unit will be formed, Frankle said, since police administrators have decided that manpower cannot be spared.

Authorities said law enforcement is only part of a solution to Blythe Street’s problems. Alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, poverty and crowded housing also must be addressed, they say.

Bernardi’s office has scheduled a meeting of owners, managers, police and city officials Thursday to again discuss solutions to neighborhood woes. “I don’t think there are any magic answers,” Slater said. “But we have to get as many people involved as possible. It will take perseverance.”

Some on Blythe already have shown they can persevere.

Combs, the apartment manager, said it has been an uphill battle in the past year to clean up the 40-unit complex he manages. He said he has evicted dozens of suspected gang members and drug dealers who were crowded into apartments in the building.

A year ago, he said, syringes littered the building’s stairwells and gang members hung around outside. Now the building is clean, and there is no loitering near the front gate, he said.

Combs’ building, which he said was at the eye of the storm a year ago, is one of the few on the block without graffiti-covered exterior walls.

During his tenure, Combs said, the windows of his apartment have been shot out or broken with rocks six times after threats by gang members.

“My philosophy is that I will outlast them,” he said. “If somebody puts graffiti on my walls, I’ll paint over it. We can do it over and over, but I won’t stop. I won’t let them get a foothold here. Because then this place would get like the rest of the street.”