Neighborhood Battling Back Against Crime

It was in the pre-dawn darkness of May 4, 1989, that Erin Coats realized her Willard neighborhood home no longer was a safe haven.

“I had a man come through my plate glass window wanting to kill my husband, my children and me,” she said. But the intruder, who she believed was on drugs, was chased away. He had the wrong address.

A few months later, the nearby YWCA began teaching self-defense--not for adults, but for preschoolers.

“This is a period of time when they are supposed to be young and carefree,” YWCA Executive Director Mary Douglas said. “When they have to be defending themselves, that’s pretty sad.”

This is not a neighborhood where children play in front yards, or seniors rock gently on their front porches. More common sightings are drug dealers, prostitutes and acts of violence.

But as frightening as these scenes are, residents, police and civic leaders say the neighborhood is improving every day. Since April, a full-scale assault has been waged on this quarter-square-mile territory in the heart of Santa Ana to help residents regain control of their neighborhood.

The cleanup task is formidable and cannot be accomplished overnight, officials concede. But neighborhood proponents vow not to give up.

“Why should I move?” demanded resident Coats. “I will move when I am ready, and I will be damned if they (drug dealers) are going to push me out.”

With guidance from City Hall and support from the YWCA, the Willard Neighborhood Assn. was created and Coats, a renter, was named president.

Police officers have spent 800 hours on foot, in patrol cruisers and in golf carts attempting to drive away drug dealers and prostitutes. And flyers being distributed throughout the neighborhood list a cellular telephone number that allows residents stay on the line and direct officers to the dealers on the street.

City code enforcement officers have also swept through the area, attempting to carve out the decay created by overcrowded and deteriorated apartment complexes that dominate the area. And absentee landlords have been urged to fire managers and evict tenants who sell drugs out of their apartments.

More than $1.3 million has been spent on public works improvements, such as the planting of 208 new trees and the construction of new sidewalks, streets and alleys. The City Council also recently imposed severe street parking restrictions with the hope of reducing traffic congestion and driving away those who do not belong in the neighborhood.

During a recent daylight patrol, police Lt. Collie Provence marveled at the fact that drug dealers were not hawking their contraband as boldly as they used to at the intersection of Durant and 15th streets.

“Six months ago, on any of these corners, whether I was here or not, we would have 10 dope dealers on each corner,” he said. “We still have drug dealers that do that. But I guess for me, the key is that when the people who have lived here tell me there’s a 1,000% improvement, then I feel good.”

Gabriel Black, the owner of a small Durant Street apartment complex who was once skeptical of the city’s efforts, said he drove through that same intersection a few days ago and witnessed a scene that gave him hope.

“There was a lovely Spanish couple at 15th and Durant with a push broom and dustpan sweeping the sidewalk,” he said. “I am sorry I didn’t have a camera. I had never seen that in 15 years.”

Longtime residents have to go back only five years to remember what was once a peaceful neighborhood. Back then, single-family houses still outnumbered small apartment complexes and families joined together for neighborhood holiday parties.

“I would walk up from Halesworth Street, up an alley and up to Durant to the market at 11 at night without fear,” 14-year neighborhood resident Ginger Glor said. “Four years ago, I wouldn’t do that any longer.”

The deterioration of the neighborhood, residents said, began when the city allowed developers to demolish single-family homes to make room for massive apartment complexes.

By 1990, according to the last U.S. Census, 95.5% of the housing units in the tract that includes Durant Street were occupied by renters, and 13% of the dwellings had seven or more residents.

Residents saw the effects of increased congestion: more trash on private property, disrepair of buildings, and more crime, such as drug sales, vandalism, burglaries, assaults and prostitution.

And because of its proximity to the Civic Center, where county and state probation offices are located, the neighborhood became a magnet for convicted felons, police said.

Children no longer could walk safely to school on Ross Street.

Coats and Glor were among those who complained incessantly.

Armed with a portable telephone, Glor would venture up her alley and call the police whenever she saw drug sales. Dealers retaliated against the 65-year-old woman first by verbally abusing her, then by beating her, shooting at her and threatening her with a knife.

Willard Intermediate School Principal Howard M. Haas said the problem became more acute in his mind last spring when he walked outside and realized that drug dealers and users had taken over the neighborhood.

“There were people here I had never seen before,” Haas said, “and there were people walking the streets, coming here at 5 o’clock in the morning in the dark.”

And City Councilman Robert L. Richardson said he became alarmed when he heard from Haas that parents were afraid to enter the neighborhood.

“That’s where I went to school, when that building was brand-new,” Richardson said. “Unless we are willing to take some drastic steps, we are not going to take it (the neighborhood) back.”

Police officers were deployed to the area and increased the number of arrests. Previously, Lt. Provence said, police had averaged 150 narcotics-related arrests each year. But more than 500 arrests have been made already this year. And while the number of calls for service last year totaled more than 5,000, Provence said that number has been cut in half.

Realizing they also needed support in the courts, police took prosecutors from the Orange County district attorney’s office on a tour of the neighborhood last spring in an undercover van. They witnessed a knife fight near the school and numerous drug sales.

That visit spurred prosecutors to argue before judges for stiffer sentences, said Carl Armbrust, the head of the district attorney’s Narcotics Enforcement Team.

“This is happening a few blocks from the courthouse from where you are sitting, your honor,” Armbrust said they could now argue. “And they (drug dealers) are near a school where children have to walk to every day. This is not just some police officer writing some police report and telling us. We have seen it.”

Warning signs will soon be posted near the school, Provence said, reminders that selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school also violates a federal law that carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $1-million fine.

In the meantime, police patrol cars are posted at the school as students arrive and leave for the day.

On another front, city code enforcement officers recently inspected 1,450 residential units--more than half were in large apartment complexes--and issued 45 notices of violations. Among the infractions were balconies that had been boarded up and converted into bedrooms to make room for more residents, or balconies containing discarded furniture and clothes hanging on the rails; units with roach and rodent infestation; and trash bins that had not been maintained.

Smoke detectors in some apartments were also faulty; water and sewer lines leaked because of plumbing problems; and urine and human feces were found in corridors, stairs and outside the buildings. Senior inspector Diana Mabry said some of the problems may not be caused by the tenants, but by the drug dealers and homeless people coming through the area.

Code inspectors hope they soon will have a new weapon to combat residential overcrowding: A new ordinance that would severely restrict the number of people who can live in each unit was upheld last week by an Orange County Superior Court judge. But immigrant rights activists who are challenging the ordinance asked the court to delay enforcement pending an appeal to a higher court.

City officials have also asked Southern California Edison to install 38 more street lights, and the new owner of the neighborhood grocery store has agreed to add lighting and security fencing on the back side of the commercial center where drug sales now occur in almost total darkness.

The YWCA, which also has a day-care center on Washington Street, has hosted neighborhood association meetings and will co-sponsor with the Police Department a Halloween party for children in the area.

“The police have really come in here in force, and the drug dealers that are on the street now are not the same ones that were here six months ago,” Coats said, lauding the efforts to date.

But while the neighborhood is on the road to recovery, residents know it will take a long time to cure the social ills.

Criminal enforcement has become a cat-and-mouse game. As soon as police officers make one arrest, other drug dealers return to the streets, betting that the officers will be tied up for at least an hour processing the suspect, police and residents said. And because of the lack of jail space, those who are arrested know they will be given a citation and a court date and then be set free.

During a recent arrest, Officer Bill Megee recognized a suspect, now wanted for failing to show up in court for a previous ticket.

“He’s the guy who threw a beer at me, lieutenant,” Megee told Provence, pointing to the handcuffed suspect. “About a couple of months ago, he threw a beer at me and hit me on the chest with it.”

A few nights later, as Megee and partner Al Preciado came up on a group of six men and a woman, Preciado saw a suspect throw something on the ground. They found two chunks of rock cocaine on the sidewalk.

The search and subsequent arrest of one suspect seemed pretty routine to those involved. The officers recognized at least half of the faces in the crowd, and the suspect demanded that they let him go because he had to be at work the next morning. Besides, the suspect said, “they can’t say I’m the one who threw it (the cocaine) down.”

Residents also say that while the environment has improved immensely in recent months--particularly during daylight hours--dealers still come out of the apartments and roam the streets at night, rushing cars with hopes of making drug sales.

From their apartment balcony, Natalie Roybal and Reynaldo Naranjo have an unobstructed view of the street dealings.

“The cars come by and they will blink their lights,” Roybal said. “You see three or four guys running and they say ‘It’s mine, it’s mine!’ They look like fools.”

Once the police leave the area, Naranjo added, drug users and homeless people who have slept under their carports comb the area at daybreak, looking for drugs that might have fallen on the street.

Coats said that on any night of the week--particularly on weekends--groups will stand in front of her house breaking up rock cocaine and making deals.

“My 4-year-old is very, very aware,” Coats said. “She’s getting an ‘A’ in drug spotting. She lets me know what’s going on.”

And while the city is erecting signs near the school warning of possible federal prosecution, police have yet to come up with an airtight case that the U.S. attorney’s office will prosecute.

Armbrust said federal prosecutors discontinued handling cases involving drug sales near schools three years ago, after the state Legislature passed a similar law that is limited only to cocaine sales and carries lesser penalties.

“I was talking to (an assistant U.S. attorney) and he says, ‘You have your own law and we are busy doing our own federal cases,’ ” Armbrust recalled. “I said that I can’t prosecute by the school if it’s not crack cocaine and he said: ‘That’s not my problem. You have a problem with your state Legislature.’ ”

Police narcotics Lt. Ken Hall said he hopes to receive “special consideration” from federal officials now reviewing one case from the Willard neighborhood.

“They have set some standards that they would like you to meet before they take the case,” Hall said. “It’s not difficult to find a case in that neighborhood, but to find a significant amount of quantity (of drugs) is unusual, generally.”

The local U.S. attorney’s office did not return phone calls for comment.

Residents also have obstacles to overcome in their efforts to reclaim the area. They find themselves struggling to get cooperation from some absentee landlords, and to draw other tenants to association meetings.

Glor said she personally hands out hundreds of flyers announcing neighborhood meetings, but fewer than 50 usually show.

“They complain and complain, but nobody backs you up,” she said. “They say ‘I am afraid,’ and I say, ‘Don’t you think I am afraid too?’ ”

During a recent association meeting, Police Sgt. Ed Andrade reviewed the steps police are taking to clean up the neighborhood. But ultimately, he said, it’s up to the residents themselves.

“We are partners,” he said. “We cannot do it alone. If you don’t call, we don’t know what is going on.”

Provence said the city is eager for the neighborhood to look after itself, because the city’s limited resources will not allow the concentrated effort to continue indefinitely.

“Until the neighborhood association is active, until the parking plan has taken effect, until the individual property owners get their procedures together for controlling their properties, then I can probably take my policemen out and treat this like any other neighborhood,” Provence said. “And Lord knows I have got other problems in my district.”