Debating Drug Barricades: Removing Rights or Providing Protection?

BACKGROUND

Fed up with a steady stream of drive-by drug buyers in residential neighborhoods, police have barricaded a 20-square-block area in Sepulveda to deter narcotics traffic.

No organized opposition has surfaced to the concept, which reportedly is the first such effort on a large scale in the nation. Since November, when police first set up wooden sawhorses around a Pico-Union neighborhood, at least three more neighborhoods have been barricaded in other parts of the city: Sepulveda, South-Central Los Angeles and Koreatown.

FOR

JOEL WACHS

Joel Wachs, 50, has been a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the past 19 years. He represents the Sepulveda neighborhood where barriers have been installed and says they have curtailed drive-by drug traffic and should be erected anywhere police and residents think they are necessary.

Q. What evidence is there that the barricades work?

A. There are four ways to judge it. You can judge it by police crime statistics, which show a substantial drop in drug-dealing and related crimes since the barricades were erected.

The second indication, which is the most significant, is the impact on the residents. Everyone that I have heard from both directly and from media accounts feel it has had a tremendous positive impact. They see less crime, they feel infinitely safer walking in the area. They feel like the area has been given back to them.

Third, as an outside observer, I have driven through those areas, and there are not the kind of blatant drug dealings on the street. There are far fewer people just sort of congregating and milling about.

The fourth thing is that it has actually lessened the need for intense police manpower in the immediate area and freed the officers to police other areas. Ironically, it’s turned out to be very cost-effective.

Q. Signs posted in one of the two barricaded neighborhoods say: “Secure Area--Residents Only.” Isn’t this restriction a violation of the civil rights of those who merely wish to visit the neighborhood?

A. Legally, they can go in and no one will stop them. The only way you can legally restrict them from going in is by withdrawing the streets from public use, which we have not done.

It’s too soon to tell if it will be necessary to remove the streets from public use and restrict entry.

Right now, it’s like having a sign on your house that says “Beware of Dog,” but you don’t really have a dog. It sends a message. I’m open to changing the wording of the signs, but I have yet to hear of one example of someone who had a lawful purpose to go in there that was denied entrance. Obviously, we don’t get calls from drug buyers complaining about not being able to go in and buy drugs.

Q. Won’t the barricades simply drive drug dealers into adjacent areas or into some of the San Fernando Valley’s other 30 or so drug hot spots?

A. We have yet to see a spillover from the entire 20-square-block area into nearby neighborhoods because there’s the natural barrier of the San Diego Freeway to the west and single-family homes in the other directions. The hope is there will be a scatter effect and the dealers will not be able to establish themselves in new areas because the police will be on the lookout for them.

I don’t know if there has been an increase of drug activity in the other hot spots. I would have to find out. I haven’t heard of it, but I’m not saying yes or no because I don’t know.

Q. Should we try this technique in other Valley neighborhoods beset by drive-by drug buyers?

A. We may. It doesn’t bother me one bit if the result is working with the residents to liberate neighborhoods in the way that we have liberated this one.

Q. Critics blast the barricades as analogous to the Berlin Wall. Are they?

A. I get really angry when someone uses that analogy because it’s a cheap shot. The Berlin Wall was a government putting up a wall to restrict the freedom of its citizens. This is a government working with its people to put up a barrier for the protection of the people.

Societies from the beginning put up barriers to keep invaders out, to keep people safe. You had walled cities. Today, people have security measures in their homes, and this is the same thing.

Q. Does this preserve neighborhoods or stigmatize them?

A. The long-term result of this is that it preserves the neighborhood and makes it much safer. So, in the long run, it does make it a more desirable place to live. It is true that it does call attention to the fact that there are problems there. But I’d rather get the problems out in the open and get rid of them so that in the end you’ve got an area that has got a great reputation, rather than one that has continually festering, underlying problems.

Q. What happens when you take the barricades away? Isn’t there a chance that the problem will return?

A. We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s not uncommon in war, and we are in a drug war, to keep adjusting your strategies. For instance, we could put the barricades back if the drug traffic returned. The point is that what you have here is a police captain and a councilman and a neighborhood saying, “We’re not going to let up on this. We’re going to do what the situation demands and respond accordingly to keep this area a safe haven.”

We’re not saying this is the magic solution or professing that it will solve the drug problem. But you don’t ignore a problem because you don’t have the total solution. Let the critics come up with the magic answer. I’d be happy to hear it.