Violent Crimes Lead to Cries for Protection : Safety: Three recent shootings by police, and the rape and beating of a mentally retarded woman, have reignited the debate over the homeless population. : SANTA MONICA

A recent rash of violent crimes in Santa Monica, including the rape and brutal beating last Monday of a 48-year-old mentally retarded woman, has reignited a cry for sterner measures to protect residents from crime--particularly crime committed by the homeless.

The spurt of violent incidents has also provided fodder for a residents group that last year made the homeless issue a central component of an unsuccessful campaign to oust City Atty. Robert M. Myers via a ballot measure that would have made the office an elected position. The group, now named the Citizens Protection Alliance, has established a Stop Crime Hot Line to gather information aimed at pressuring the Police Department to cite more people for such misdemeanor crimes as drinking in public.

“When you have a society that basically ignores citing people for misdemeanor crimes that were intended to deter more serious crimes, it results in anarchy,” said Leslie Dutton, the group’s executive director. “Unless we start taking those folks off the street and enforcing the laws, the situation is only going to get worse.”

Myers and police officials in the past have said that because of overcrowded jails, the courts in many cases have allowed people charged with misdemeanors off with time already served.

“Everyone would like to see crime go away,” said Detective Shane Talbot, chairman of the Santa Monica Police Officers Assn., which represents the 175-officer department. “But I don’t think you can take a broad stroke at the problem and say (laws) are not getting enforced. If our jails were not full and we were seeing these people walk, then I would say there is something wrong.”

Crime in Santa Monica has increased 12% during the first six months of this year compared to the first half of 1990.

Police say the principal ingredient in the 12% increase in crime for the first half of 1991 is a 35% rise in residential burglaries. There were 454 such burglaries reported from Jan. 1 through June 30 this year, up from 336 last year. Police said it is difficult to determine whether the crimes are being commited by homeless people.

Meanwhile, Santa Monica police in a recent two-month period fatally shot three people while trying to arrest them; in all of 1990, there was not a single fatal shooting involving a Santa Monica officer.

The first such incident this year was on May 30 when police shot and killed a man who had attacked a security guard and had been harassing pedestrians and motorists near the Santa Monica Pier.

Last Sunday, police shot and killed a 28-year-old ex-Marine on the beach shortly before dawn. The man, who had been drinking, was shooting randomly into the ocean with a .22-caliber gun.

Then on Monday, police shot and killed a man suspected of attempted rape and burglary. The man, whom police described as a transient, tried to use his 44-year-old victim as a shield when officers arrived, police said.

Earlier that same day, a mentally retarded woman was beaten and raped near Santa Monica College, and a homeless man was arrested and charged with the crime. The attack drew widespread media attention because of an initial police report that it had occurred in view of “hundreds of people,” a report that turned out not to be true.

In any event, the frustration over unpunished crimes committed by homeless people apparently has spread to some officers in the Santa Monica Police Department.

Two residents recounted to The Times recent incidents in which they said police officers blamed the City Council and its tolerant attitude toward the homeless for the city’s crime problems.

“Don’t you know that the mayor has opened up our city to the homeless?” Marla J. Eisenbrandt said she was told by one officer, whose name she did not recall. “He informed me that I was depriving others of police protection while I ‘take up his time.’

“Is the goal here to transform Santa Monica into a haven for the underground and renounce the law-abiding citizens?” asked Eisenbrandt, who moved to Santa Monica from Kansas in May. “I feel angry and sad.”

Another resident, Lilly Estella, said an officer, whom she could not identify, told her that residents will continue to be victimized if city officials who are not responsive to the problem continue to be elected.

“The police officer painted such a futuristically bleak picture of Santa Monica and its city officials, that for the moment, I truly regretted having moved here,” said Estella, who said she expressed her feelings to council members in two letters, both of which went unanswered.

Talbot, the union chairman, acknowledged that some officers feel frustrated when people they arrest are back on the streets within days. But he said he hoped that incidents such as those described by Estella and Eisenbrandt were infrequent.

Mayor Judy Abdo said that it is unfair to blame the City Council for the homeless problem.

“It is not the City Council that has made it impossible for the courts and jails to handle homeless people,” Abdo said. “When a crime is not considered serious, they go to court, and they are released. That has nothing to do with city policy. Crime and homelessness are not synonymous.”

Abdo said that the city’s tolerant attitude toward the homeless may contribute in a small way to attracting more homeless people to Santa Monica, but she said most come for the same reasons other people move to Santa Monica: “It’s a pleasant place to live, and it is the end of the road.”

A city Homeless Task Force has been working on a broad-based approach to changes in how the city deals with the homeless population, including social service programs, shelters and enforcement of laws.

But Abdo said she is aware that some people are losing patience.

“I think there is growing frustration among everyone in Santa Monica,” she said. “But no one city is ever going to solve the homeless problem.”

Dutton, however, said that one step in that direction is to cite and arrest people for misdemeanor crimes, and she said she is hopeful that her group can persuade the City Council to endorse that philosophy.

Dutton said that by the end of this month, her group will distribute 11,000 cards with the hot line number.