Once a Haven, Ventura County Sees a Surge in Crime

By DARYL KELLEY

July 13, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

VENTURA —

Ranked as the safest urban county in the western United States for years, Ventura County has begun to feel a surge in crime that law enforcement officials blame partly on increased gang activity, a growing drug problem and criminals driving in from Los Angeles.

Reported serious crime has surged 17.3% countywide since the end of 1989, reversing a trend that saw crime drop for a decade even as 140,000 residents arrived.

Sharp increases have occurred in nearly every part of the county, regardless of the poverty or wealth of neighborhoods. The county registered 30,000 serious crimes in 1991, up 4,419 in two years.

“Sometimes we feel like we’re just hanging on,” said Undersheriff Larry Carpenter, whose department patrols about half the county. “We’re like the little Dutch boy with a finger in the dike, trying to stop the flood.”

Law enforcement analysts say that the affluent eastern cities of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, as well as Camarillo, increasingly have been victimized by Los Angeles County criminals who sweep north on freeways, searching for late-model cars and unprotected homes and businesses.

The percentage of inmates in the Ventura County Jail who are from Los Angeles County has increased 60% in two years, the Sheriff’s Department reports. Two Van Nuys gang members arrested in December are suspected of committing more than 600 car burglaries in 1991.

And in the western part of the county, hit hardest by violent crime, officials say they are trying to decide what to do about young criminals who run in gangs.

Oxnard police say they have identified 1,200 gang members, associates and wanna-bes--an extraordinary number, considering that the Police Department only acknowledged a gang problem in 1989.

Most Oxnard gang members are home-grown. However, police say, some Los Angeles gang members have moved here to escape the violence of the inner city--and brought some of it with them.

“These guys hang out here, drink their beers, sniff their paint and wait for some new victim to come by,” patrolman Jim O’Brien said.

It was not long ago that Ventura County police were counting their blessings.

For 11 straight years Ventura County had the lowest crime rate of any non-rural county in California. For half a dozen years it was the safest urban county in the 13-state region the FBI defines as the West.

In 1991, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley ranked as the nation’s two safest cities with populations of at least 100,000 after relatively low 6% and 8% increases for the year, the FBI reported in April.

But local police say that Ventura County experienced a 13% increase in serious crime last year, and that may knock it from its top ranking in the West when the FBI issues its complete report in August.

Overall, the county had 43.7 serious crimes per 1,000 residents last year, up from 38.2 in 1989. By contrast, California as a whole had about 67 crimes per 1,000 residents in 1991, and the nation had about 59 crimes per 1,000 overall.

Ventura County crime is up sharply in every category since 1989, when the crime rate reached its lowest level since the early 1970s.

To O’Brien, 33, a veteran of 12 years of patrol on the streets of Port Hueneme and Oxnard, the problem comes down to this:

“Narcotics. And people don’t have any sense of morality these days. With all the media attention on gangs, everything’s kind of blossomed up here. They’ve gotten to be real brazen.”

In a report to the Board of Supervisors this year, Sheriff John Gillespie said the number of inmates from Los Angeles County in the Ventura County Jail was up nearly two-thirds in two years. The total was 92 inmates, about 8% of those in county lockups.

Undersheriff Carpenter said he considers out-of-county criminals a problem that is not going away and is partly responsible for Thousand Oaks’ increase from 55 robberies two years ago to 78 in 1991.

Among the sheriff’s best weapons against crime in the eastern county has been an intense analysis of crime patterns that allows teams of investigators to stake out streets, shopping centers and parking lots and wait for repeat criminals to return, Carpenter said.

Simi Valley has used the same strategy to try to combat an increase in auto thefts since 1989.

“We’re suffering from our proximity to L.A.,” Chief Lindsey P. Miller said. “There are gangs that specialize in stealing cars and taking them to chop shops for the purpose of parting them out.”

It is Oxnard, the county’s largest city and among its poorest, that police often mention when discussing crime trends. It is the only local city with a crime rate equal to the California average.

Just 21% of the county’s residents live within its boundaries, but 31% of the county’s property crime and 46% of its violent crime took place there in 1991.

Oxnard officials do not minimize their problems.

New Police Chief Harold Hurtt said he intends to move quickly to send a message to Los Angeles gang members who may think crime is easier in Oxnard. He hopes to gradually phase out Sunday night cruising, which he says is a problem because of gang confrontations.

Ventura County Crime Trends, 1980-91

CRIME OVERALL

Decreased: 3.8%, 1980-89

Increased: 17.3%, 1990-91

Current: 30,000 serious violent and property crimes in 1991.

CONTEXT: County still has one of the lowest crime rates in U.S.

Crimes per 1,000 residents:

1980: 50.3

1989: 38.2

1991: 43.7

VIOLENT CRIME

Increased: 4.2%, 1980-89