Crime-Stoppers : Porter Ranch: Worried residents listen to burglars, car thieves and drug dealers for tips on ways to avoid being victimized.

Tony Pierce walked up to the church pulpit, flexed his powerful tattooed biceps and stretched out his arms to the crowd of about 500 Porter Ranch residents.

“I used to love to come to places like this--lots of rich people here that are easy to rob,” Pierce boomed, evoking a chorus of gasps. “All these people with nice jewelry, nice watches and fancy cars parked outside, there could be someone like me outside now, waiting for you, checking you out. Looking for targets.”

His three-minute speech had many people in the audience at Shepherd of the Hills Church clutching their diamond rings or looking nervously at their Rolex watches--just the kind of response that might have made his task easier in the bad old days, he warned them. Pierce, a convicted robber from Pacoima, came to tell residents of this upscale neighborhood how to avoid people like him.

Pierce was part of a panel discussion Tuesday night by convicted criminals--burglars, car thieves and drug dealers--who shared their trade secrets with members of Neighborhood Watch groups in a program sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The panel was an example of both the Police Department’s new emphasis on community policing and burgeoning concern over crime in the posh Porter Ranch area. Since 1988, home burglaries, auto break-ins and car thefts have nearly doubled in Porter Ranch, Los Angeles police said.

“In the past three years it has become terrible,” said resident Steve Almany as he counted off the friends and neighbors who had suffered from recent crimes.

When Officer Jim Dellinger, one of two police officers moderating the event, asked robbery victims there to stand, about 25 people rose. About 30 more stood up when he asked for burglary victims and then another 20 when Dellinger asked for car theft victims--putting more than a sixth of the audience on its feet.

The five panelists said they got their starts in crime early. Danny Rodriguez, 24, an ex-gang member from El Monte, said he was first arrested at age 8. All emphasized to the well-heeled group that most criminals are poor, desperate and often very mean.

“If somebody like me comes along, don’t try to fight him,” Pierce said. “Because he might use a pistol on you.”

Other speakers were equally blunt.

“I’m going to tell you how to keep guys like me out of your house,” said William Macia, 34, a convicted burglar from Sylmar.

Macia said most alarms could be circumvented, but he still encouraged their use.

“Anything that slows me down makes me want to hit somewhere else instead,” he said.

Macia said that leaving the television on loud, or having a timer turn on lights or a TV, are clear indications to a robber that no one is home. “Real people don’t do things like that,” Macia said, reminding the audience that burglars in wealthy neighborhoods are usually “professionals.”

Dogs were generally ineffective, Macia said, but he strongly encouraged sensors that turn on house lights automatically when someone approaches the house.

“They always aggravated me.”

Tony Hazel, 35, started stealing Volkswagens in Pacoima and later graduated to Porsches in Encino. “I needed expensive cars to feed my heroin habit,” which cost $1,500 a day in 1983, Hazel said.

“We would come into neighborhoods just like this one here. You can break into almost any car with a screwdriver.”

Hazel scorned most car alarms, saying that thieves always learn to disarm them. He said that car alarms that cut off electrical current to a car’s starter motor are among the most effective.

When the speeches concluded, panelists fielded questions from the shaken but curious audience.

“Don’t leave here feeling paranoid,” said Dellinger, as he and Officer Rick Gibby encouraged questions.

About 15 people interviewed afterward said the panel was informative, but several confessed it also made them nervous.

One black Porter Ranch resident pointed out that the audience was overwhelmingly Anglo, while all the panelists were black or Latino.

“I’m all for crime prevention, but I don’t want to see it become an excuse to single out minorities,” said Lonnie Wilson, who lost $20,000 in belongings to a burglar. “I’m worried that people might look at me suspiciously when I walk around my neighborhood.”