Police Want Blythe Street Barrier Out : Neighborhoods: Roadblock installed five years ago to help authorities stop drug deals has given gangs control, authorities say.

A concrete barrier installed on one of the San Fernando Valley’s most drug-plagued streets to help police arrest drug buyers has instead given violent gang members virtual control of the street and is hampering police efforts to fight back, Los Angeles police said Saturday.

“The gang members now terrorize the residents on the street, and we never had that before the barricade was installed,” said Charles Leber, the senior lead police officer for the area.

Police would like the barricade--erected five years ago at the intersection of Blythe Street and Willis Avenue--removed to give them easier access to the street.

But residents and owners of apartments on the blockaded area, just west of Van Nuys Boulevard, are divided on the issue.

“I used to see six or seven or eight cars of people buying drugs at one time on the street,” said Manuel Flores, who owns a small market at the east end of the barricaded area. After the barricade went in, however, the volume of the curbside drug trade decreased and the number of gang members hanging out on the street plying their trade fell, he said.

Others who attended a forum on the issue organized by the office of City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the area, disagreed.

They said the barricade has emboldened the estimated 100 to 200 members of the Blythe Street Dukes, a Latino gang that sells $20 rocks of cocaine in front of several graffiti-covered buildings in the middle of the block. With the street blocked off, the gang members only have to watch in one direction for police or rival gang members, and when a black-and-white cruiser comes on the block, they scatter using elaborate escape routes.

“I don’t call them gang members anymore,” said Chuck Ferbrache, who has owned a building on the street for 18 years. “I call them terrorists.”

Manuel Rivero, another apartment owner on the street, said the barricade has hurt property values on the street and that the windows in his buildings have been shot out repeatedly.

“If the barricade has been so beneficial, then why have the shootings continued?” he asked.

Other owners and residents said gang members brazenly block traffic to harass or rob motorists, stone cars and rough up and rob pedestrians. They said they hear gunfire and see gang members paint graffiti on walls and buildings almost daily. And many are afraid to walk down the street to shop at the corner market.

“I usually don’t come down here anymore because I’m scared,” said Alma Velasco, 19, who lives on Blythe Street. “But sometimes we have to because we don’t have a car and it’s the only store around here.”

Velasco, who lives just west of the barricade, said she thought removing the barricade would make her part of the street safer.

Although blocking the street has reduced the trafficking on Blythe Street, drug sales on Willis, just west of the barricade, have increased, said Terry Fleischman, a co-owner of an apartment building near the barrier. He said he has been shot at and had rocks thrown by gang members at him and his car.

“If you take away the barricade, you better have a very fine plan to take care of the problems that will result,” he said, predicting a further rise in drug sales on Blythe.

Leber told the crowd that a plan is being formulated on how to police the area if the blockade is removed.

Ray Magana, an aide to Bernardi who organized Saturday’s forum to gather input on the issue, said his office will review that plan before making a recommendation regarding whether the blockade should be taken out.

Leber said the barricade hampers law enforcement in several ways: undercover narcotics officers feel unsafe making drug buys and arrests there because backup officers in uniform only can enter the street from one direction. Police cruisers on routine patrol do not make trips onto the street because it requires a detour.

In addition, he said, the barricade has made it more difficult to document drug activity in connection with certain apartment buildings. If the drug trade can be tied to the buildings, the city attorney’s civil abatement section can take action against the owners and require them to install security measures.

Finally, Leber and others said, the barricade could be a potential legal liability to the city if it could be shown that it contributed to a death or injury.

Indeed, two deaths in 1990 were attributed to the barricade. In one case, a carload of teen-agers from Long Beach turned down the street by mistake and gang members shot at the car, hitting and killing a passenger.

In another case, two women from Canyon Country who had gone to the street to buy drugs were harassed by gang members and became scared. The driver of the car sped up, lost control of the vehicle and hit a tree, killing the passenger.

But a 19-year-old gang member named Ruben said in an interview that deaths will increase if the barricade is taken out.

“When they take off the roadblock, you’ll hear about this street a lot,” he said. Other gangs “will come by and start shooting, but they won’t hit us. They’ll hit little kids. We can run or shoot back, but gang members aren’t good shots, they’re not hunters, and little kids will get shot.”