Gangs Blamed for Rising Crime in Hollywood

Hollywood has been hit by a sharp rise in crime in recent months as gang members swarm into the faded movie capital, cruising its famous boulevards and fighting over turf and control of the drug trade, authorities say.

In the first 6 1/2 months of the year, there were 29 homicides, a 52.6% increase over the first six months of 1990. Robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, car theft and some other serious crimes have increased sharply as well, according to statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department.

“Our officers are seeing people murdered, people being shot and people being attacked,” said Capt. John L. Higgins, recently installed commanding officer of the Hollywood Division. “We certainly do know we have a problem.”

Some of the department’s 16 other divisions have a higher frequency of homicide and certain other serious crimes, but none has had the sharp increase that Hollywood has experienced. Overall, serious crime was up 16% in Hollywood from Jan. 1 through July 14 compared to last year, said Officer Bill Frio, a department spokesman.

Other divisions with significant increases in serious crimes in the first 6 1/2 months of 1991 were the Northeast Division, covering the Highland Park area, with a 12.2% rise, and three divisions in the San Fernando Valley--Devonshire (11.8%), West Valley (10.9%) and Foothill (10%), Frio said.

Citywide, serious crime increased 4.7% over the same time period last year, he said. In some divisions, crime went down.

Hollywood has long been beset by crime and urban blight, so much so that city leaders are trying to revive the area with a $922-million redevelopment project and a branch of the Metro Rail subway. For years, a volatile mix of transients, thugs, hucksters, teen-age runaways and prostitutes have routinely preyed on each other, on local residents and on the thousands of tourists who arrive by the busload every day and night.

But the recent increase in crime has stymied local authorities.

“It’s out of control, that’s for sure,” said Sgt. Alan Thatcher, night watch commander of the LAPD’s Westside anti-gang team. “In Hollywood, we’ve got everything, and all at once. . . . We just try to put a lid on things one place before moving on to the next.”

Police have traced much of the bloodshed to brazen, gun-toting gang members who are coming from as far away as Ventura and Orange counties to mingle with the teen-agers who flock to Hollywood and Sunset boulevards for nighttime cruising, particularly on weekends.

“Stopped in traffic, one car going east and another west, they start flipping gang signs,” Higgins said. “And that’s like waving a flag at a bull.”

Since Jan. 1, at least 14 people have been slain along or near the two cruising boulevards, and there have been at least 394 robberies and 321 assaults in the same area. Most of the problems, according to police, occur on weekend nights and are concentrated on the eastern portions of the two boulevards, east of La Brea Avenue.

Police said some gang members have come to Hollywood after a clampdown in gang cruising along Whittier Boulevard near East Los Angeles. Others tell police that the boulevards are merely their latest trendy hangout.

Whatever the case, so many gang members are now cruising that when they confront each other in heavy traffic, police--and the gang members themselves--are getting confused. “They’re throwing gang signs that we--and they--don’t even recognize,” Thatcher said.

In an effort to control the cruising, police for years have erected barricades on Friday and Saturday nights to close portions of Hollywood and Sunset boulevards to traffic--generally from Highland Avenue to Western Avenue. They also barricade some side streets a few blocks away from the boulevards to try to prevent bottlenecks. But they say cruisers still travel on unblocked portions of the boulevards east and west of the barricades and clog cross streets that are kept open to allow traffic to pass through.

Sometimes, when the heavy traffic grinds to a halt, gang members have been getting out of their cars to rob fellow cruisers, beat them with clubs and fire their weapons, even as officers watch from nearby sidewalks, Thatcher said.

“Someone gets shot at probably every other day,” said Detective Jim Bosse, head of the assault detail at Hollywood police headquarters.

A few recent examples:

* Last Monday, a gun battle erupted between rival gangs.

* On July 19, another exchange of gunfire led police to a 15-year-old suspected gang member carrying a handgun.

* On June 15, two teen-age brothers were fatally shot and a friend was wounded as they sat in their Cadillac while cruising Sunset Boulevard. Police said it was at least the third time victims have been shot while stopped in traffic in Hollywood.

* On April 10, three youths were killed and a fourth was wounded near Hollywood Boulevard and Bronson Avenue after one victim apparently yelled out a rival gang’s name. A Hollywood teen-ager has been charged with the shootings.

Hollywood’s indigenous crime problems are flaring up, too. The increase in crime, according to Capt. Higgins, has been “throughout the week, and across the board.”

Some community activists suggest that police crackdowns in West Hollywood and MacArthur Park have chased more transients, prostitutes and troublemakers into Hollywood, which lies between those sites.

Police say an influx of gang members from elsewhere has disrupted the shaky truce that is usually observed by the area’s 12 or more local gangs. New and old gang members are crowding into seedy apartment buildings and motels along the boulevards and some blighted side streets, where they tend to drink, fight, steal, and deal drugs.

“Anybody who is a good citizen is getting kicked out or leaving” some areas, said gang unit Officer Dan Molieri. “It’s just too dangerous.”

Meanwhile, residents in the working-class enclaves of Hollywood, generally a hardy and resilient lot, are becoming afraid.

“It intimidates everyone from going out,” said Sharyn Romano, co-chairwoman of the United Streets of Hollywood, an umbrella group of 14 area neighborhood organizations. “They’ve decided they own the neighborhoods,” she said of the gangs. “There’s gunfire constantly.”

Convenience stores and bars have become magnets for crime. One 7-Eleven store at the corner of Cahuenga Boulevard and Yucca Street has been the scene of many a gunfight and confrontation.

“Oh yes, we have a lot of problems,” a 7-Eleven clerk named Kim said, keeping his voice down so customers wouldn’t hear. “A lot of homicides. How many, I don’t know.”

Higgins, who took over the Hollywood Division in March, acknowledges the increased danger.

“I’m not satisfied with the level of safety we are providing in Hollywood,” he said. “I don’t know what else we can do, but we are always exploring.”

Among the changes Higgins has already made are the strengthening of foot patrols in problem areas and assigning officers to accompany local Neighborhood Watch groups as they patrol their neighborhoods.

But at least one neighborhood group says police have not made enough arrests and need to do better.

In a letter to Mayor Tom Bradley’s office, Ivar Hill Community Assn. President Joseph P. Shea said he wants the City Council’s Public Safety Committee to be given more of a role in overseeing the Police Department.

“In a functioning democracy,” Shea wrote, “these (crime) statistics would have jumped out at a civilian oversight authority, and measures would have been taken to immediately reduce criminal episodes and increase arrests.”

Elected city officials “have to be able to put out fires like the one we’ve seen in Hollywood,” Shea said in an interview. “And the public has to be able to hold council members accountable for doing that.”

Councilman Michael Woo, who represents Hollywood, was the first councilman to call for the resignation of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating. He said he was initially concerned that the increase in crime might have been exacerbated by vindictive Hollywood police officers not patrolling his district as much or making as many arrests.

“That concern has not been borne out at all,” Woo said. “There has been no visible difference” in police service.

Citing the “very real and serious gang threat,” Woo recently secured $50,000 to pay for the deployment of more city traffic officers at the traffic barricades on Friday and Saturday nights. This would free LAPD officers to spend more time fighting crime.

Woo also introduced a motion in the City Council last week asking for more barricades, and said he plans to ask for even more during a council meeting next week. He also said he is trying to force convenience store owners to provide private security.

Higgins said arrests have more than kept pace with the crime increase, yet crime and the influx of gangs show no signs of abating.

“How do you explain that? I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not because people here aren’t working or trying different enforcement actions.”

Hollywood Crime

Here is a look at the number of serious crimes occurring in the LAPD Hollywood Division from Jan. 1 through July 14, 1991, compared to the same period last year:

TYPE YEAR TO DATE 1990 TO DATE % CHANGE Homicide 29 19 52.6% Robbery 1,395 1,024 36.2% Aggravated Assault 1,377 1,103 24.8% Other Theft 1,650 1,376 19.9% Burglary from Auto 2,751 2,374 15.9% Burglary 1,652 1,475 12.0% Auto Theft 2,904 2,655 9.4% Rape 78 73 6.8% Personal Theft 170 169 1.3% Theft from Auto 514 516 -0.4% Total 12,520 10,784 16.1%

Here is a look at the percentage rise or decline in serious crimes by LAPD division, comparing the first six months of 1990 with 1991. WEST BUREAU Hollywood Division: 16.1% Pacific Division: 1.7% West L.A. Division: 7.1% Wilshire Division: 8.1% VALLEY BUREAU Devonshire Division: 11.8% Foothill Division: 10.0% North Hollywood Division: 7.6% Van Nuys Division: 4.4% West Valley Division: 10.9% CENTRAL BUREAU Hollenbeck Division: -2.1% Newton Division: -2.8% Northeast Division: 12.2% Rampart Division: -6.1% Central Division: -3.6% SOUTH BUREAU Harbor Division: -0.7% Southwest Division: 2.8% 77th Division: 5.6% Southeast Division: 5.2%