Crime Cut by Bikes, Barricades : Law enforcement: The neighborhood was a drug haven until new tactics were implemented. The two-wheel patrols and barriers have made a dent in the danger, but some residents still live in fear.

For nearly three years, the area around Laura Avenue and Valley Boulevard was a dreamland for drug dealers and a nightmare for its impoverished, mainly Mexican-American residents.

Dealers stood curbside at all hours selling rock cocaine. Expensive sedans, BMWs and even limousines and taxis often cruised the streets, their occupants eager to score dope.

Five people were killed on the neighborhood’s mean streets during that time, including 12-year-old Ricardo Escobar. The boy was shot in the head last August while riding his bicycle just steps from the apartment he shared with his mother and five younger siblings.

The still-unsolved slaying was a jolt to the beleaguered neighborhood. Scores of residents moved out of their cramped, hot apartments. Suspected drug-dealing tenants were evicted by apartment managers. City officials put up concrete barricades to block the auto cruising. And Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies began pedaling bicycles on the streets to nab sidewalk dealers.

As a result, crime in the area is down 18% and arrests have declined by 32%, according to recent sheriff’s statistics.

The bike patrols and barricades have done the trick, authorities say with pride.

But some residents say they still live in fear.

“ Un poquito mejor “--”a little bit better”--is how Isabel Camacho characterized the neighborhood she has called home for eight years.

“Now, it’s calm,” the 27-year-old mother of three continued, in Spanish, as she stood in a crowded apartment courtyard where 20 small children played on a recent afternoon. “But it’s better to stay inside. I won’t let my children play outside (the courtyard).”

“The problem is outside,” said one apartment manager, referring to the streets just beyond the barricades. “It’s not the same traffic, but it’s the same problem. . . .

“To be honest, I can’t see too much change with the barricades.”

The concrete barriers and bike patrols were instituted last December as a joint anti-crime response devised by La Puente officials and the Sheriff’s Department. Deputies from the Industry station are under contract ($3.8 million this year) to provide law enforcement for the city’s 36,955 residents.

The area around Valley Boulevard and Laura Avenue has absorbed much of the deputies’ time and effort for the past three years. Undercover sting operations, 24-hour command posts, extra patrols, school rallies and even appearances by Sheriff Sherman Block were all tried. After those efforts, the bike patrols and barricades, employed successfully by deputies in Paramount, were suggested.

The barriers--sections of giant concrete sewer pipes filled with dirt and planted with trees--cost the city $19,000. Placed only inches apart, they block three streets, two alleys and a driveway, making Laura Avenue a cul-de-sac with only one entry point and no access to heavily traveled Valley Boulevard.

The idea was to cut off cruising and make it difficult for drug purchasers and dealers to drive through the area, sheriff’s Lt. David Betkey said.

In tandem, the department bought 12 Raleigh mountain bikes and assigned 17 shorts-clad deputies to pedal through areas of La Puente, including the crime-besieged Laura-Valley neighborhood, usually from midmorning through mid-evening.

“One of the problems with patrol cars is that they can be seen from a great distance,” Betkey said. “The drug dealers see a black-and-white (patrol car) coming and they hide. But when you put the deputies on bikes right in the middle, it’s difficult to deal drugs.”

With their white shirts, black shorts, handguns and walkie-talkies, the bicycling deputies are a noticeable presence as they swoop down the streets and cut in and out of apartment complexes. Usually, three or four officers are assigned on a varying schedule to the neighborhood, with another deputy cruising in a backup patrol car.

The tactics have made a difference to Van Windham, principal of nearby Hurley Elementary School. He said drug dealers used to make lewd comments to mothers escorting their children to school and would frighten children by demanding their lunch money.

“It used to be a regular problem, but as soon as the barricades went in, it stopped,” the educator said.

Shooting incidents have also decreased and the drug-seeking auto traffic is down, some residents say. On a recent weekday afternoon, older children rode bicycles through the area and a sidewalk vendor sold paletas , flavored ice on a stick.

But other residents doubt the relative calm will be permanent.

“It got better, but then it started going the same,” said Yesenia Avalos. “It’s kind of like the same. Dangerous.”

Avalos, 19, said she stays inside her apartment all day, venturing out with her 18-month-old daughter, Kimberly, only to buy groceries.

The problem, said one apartment manager who would not give her name for fear of reprisals, is that the drug dealers simply stay outside the barricades. They conduct their business there or venture into the neighborhood on foot. They have lost their initial fear of the bicycle deputies because the officers do not patrol often enough, she said.

Officials concede that drug dealers usually return when deputies leave. But Betkey said the department cannot assign the biking deputies to the Laura-Valley area more frequently, because other La Puente neighborhoods and business areas also must be patrolled.