PLACENTIA : City Urged to Act on Crime Problems

More than 40 residents attended the City Council meeting Wednesday night to vent their frustrations over rising gang and crime problems in the city.

Although the issue was not on the agenda, many of the residents came to tell the council that they thought not enough is being done to address the gang problem and to urge council members to give gang and crime prevention a higher priority. Several demanded that the council approve the hiring of more police officers.

Several residents were from predominantly Latino neighborhoods in south Placentia. They said that while police have been effective in dealing with problems such as neo-Nazis gathering in north Placentia’s Tri-City Park, they have been largely ineffective in easing south Placentia’s gang and crime problems.

“It’s typical biased action,” resident Margarita Duncan told the council. “We in southern Placentia feel we’ve been discriminated against again.”

A gang of about six skinheads started hanging out in Tri-City Park earlier this year, according to police. The teen-agers carved swastikas and white-supremacy slogans on trees and scribbled them on bathroom walls.

Police Chief Manuel Ortega, who later in the meeting delivered a report on the crime and gang situation in what amounted to a rebuttal of the residents’ complaints, said the skinheads have not returned since increased patrols were implemented.

Bluebell Avenue resident Joe Aquirre thanked the council and the police chief for ridding his area of skinheads but also spoke on behalf of members of his family who live in south Placentia neighborhoods that have been the site of gang violence.

“What disturbs me is that this kind of attention is not applied to the rest of the city,” Aquirre said. “We have a war going on in our city, and I cannot believe we can’t find the money for more police.”

The council was presented with copies of flyers encouraging residents to attend Wednesday night’s meeting that read, “Placentia--All American City: Drive-by shootings, drugs, graffiti, animal killings. Are our children next?” The flyers were distributed Saturday at the annual Heritage Festival by residents from the Tri-City Park area.

Greg Slater, who brought the flyers to the meeting, told the council: “There’s not enough money in the city to clean up the dirt, so citizens have to become the eyes and ears.”

Council members responded to the statements by requesting the residents’ involvement in neighborhood watch groups and in reporting incidents and taking action within their own communities.

“It’s very unfair to hold the police responsible for the problems in our community,” Councilwoman Carol Downey said. “The problems did not happen overnight, and they are not going to go away overnight.”

Councilman Norman Z. Eckenrode criticized parents who he said have failed to prevent their children from joining gangs.

“You people are coming at our jugulars when we’re trying to find solutions,” Eckenrode said. “No one has talked about the responsibilities of parents over their own children. There are solutions, but we have to come together.”