Time of Giving May Mean Season of Taking at Malls : Crime: As business quickens at Valley shopping centers, consumers and beefed-up security go on the alert for violence and shoplifting.

‘Tis the Season of Giving.

And stealing too.

Just as stringing decorations and wrapping gifts are holiday rituals, so too is patrolling the mall--if you’re a cop--and keeping a wary eye open in the parking lot--if you’re a shopper.

This weekend as thousands of consumers flocked to San Fernando Valley-area shopping malls, they were joined by ever-growing numbers of police officers and private security guards trying to weed out those who come not to buy but to prey.

Both shoppers and coppers were on alert.

“It’s just been going crazy today,” said Officer Jim Heitz of the Los Angeles Police Department from his desk at the Topanga Plaza substation in Woodland Hills. Heitz had written reports on two shoplifters and was heading back to the shopping center to pick up a third held by security guards. And it was only 2 p.m.

At Sherman Oaks Galleria, Maria Navarro echoed the sentiments of many shoppers who said they have read a lot about car-jackings, armed robberies and crime in general.

“I felt a little uncomfortable parking in here even though it’s daylight,” Navarro said as she stood by her car in the enclosed parking lot. “I watch myself to see if someone’s following me, and these days I’m very aware of my surroundings.”

Mindful of such attitudes, police have increased their presence from Burbank’s Media Center to Valencia Town Center.

Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Steve Vincent usually patrols stretches of Sepulveda Boulevard, a hangout for prostitutes. But Saturday he was on mall duty, cruising Northridge Fashion Center’s parking lot on a bicycle.

“Some people don’t come here to shop,” he said with some understatement. “Their whole purpose is to commit a crime.”

Some Explorer Scouts thought they had found just such a person Saturday afternoon in the mall’s parking lot.

“We saw this guy looking at the car, looking inside real suspiciously,” said Explorer Dante Johnson, 16. “He saw us see him and started walking real fast. Then he looked back and saw we were following him and he ran.”

The 13 uniformed Scouts, all interested in law-enforcement careers, patrolled in pairs and carried hand-held radios to alert police and mall security. A separate Explorer Scout unit kept watch at Topanga Plaza.

“They’re our eyes and ears,” said Officer Robert Frutos, who supervised the Fashion Center unit. “They don’t make arrests or become involved in confrontations.”

The Scouts, who worked a six-hour shift at the Fashion Center, were bused in from the 77th Street Division in South-Central Los Angeles. “The malls are great training for them. We take them to the Valley or Westside because we don’t have any malls in South-Central,” Frutos added, shrugging his shoulders.

Nonetheless, Johnson was not impressed. “This mall is real boring,” he said. “It’s nothing like South-Central out here.”

“But there’s lots of great-looking girls,” interjected fellow Explorer Antonio Brisco. Officers say some holiday police work involves such mundane tasks as finding lost children and mediating disputes over what some might argue are the most valuable items at any mall.

“A lot of what we have here are people arguing over parking spaces. We try to let them figure it out themselves,” said Todd Newman, a private security guard at the Northridge Fashion Center. Occasionally, he said, guards have to act as referees when irate motorists start shoving and swinging.

But on the whole, officers and guards are on the lookout for auto theft, auto burglary and shoplifting. Especially shoplifting.

Oddly enough, it’s not uncommon to arrest shoplifters who have enough money to pay for the stolen goods, said Benjamin Trask, assistant director of security at Topanga Plaza.

“What strikes me sometimes as funny is that once these people are arrested, they offer to pay for what they have stolen,” Trask said.

Officer Heitz told of a man he once arrested, “who had $7,000 cash in his pocket and stole a $100 pair of shoes.”

The motivation for holiday shoplifting varies.

“It ranges from those who say they didn’t want to wait in line or they wanted to see if they could get away with it . . . to the more hard-core people who are drug users stealing for the money,” Trask said. “Or they just want the merchandise and take it because they can’t afford it.”

And always, Heitz said, “they have a million excuses. I just had a 77-year-old man stealing jewelry who told me he just started stealing now at his age.”

Generally, most shoplifters are nabbed by store security officers, who then call police. Officers have little discretion in such Code 44s, simple thefts worth less than $400. First-timers are booked on the spot, given a stern lecture and released on their own recognizance with a citation similar to a traffic ticket.

Repeat offenders are hauled off to regular police station lockups. Some are briefly held at substations in the malls themselves.

Last year, Los Angeles Police opened a new substation in Topanga Plaza mall, the first such police facility in the Valley. That facility also serves the nearby Promenade and Fallbrook malls. A new substation has been opened in Panorama Mall, and Burbank Police have opened a similar substation in the Media City Center mall.

The substations have a psychological, as well as practical, impact.

“We’re not just here to make arrests, we’re here to deter them too,” said Officer C. Burke, who is part of a team that patrols Panorama Mall, Sherman Oaks Galleria and Sherman Oaks Fashion Square. “We’re geared to community relations. We want people to see that we’re here.”

“The more uniformed presence we can get out into the mall and into the parking lot the more we can deter the crime,” agreed Trask of Topanga Plaza. “It also makes the customers feel safer.”

Trask said several customers this season have told his officers of a newfound uneasiness while shopping. Some nighttime shoppers who would not normally take advantage of the mall’s valet parking are now doing so, said Nick Damshenas, a valet parking supervisor.

To ease such fears, Topanga Plaza security guards will escort shoppers to their cars.

“If people feel unsafe walking to their car or unsafe any time they’re in the mall, they should never hesitate to call mall security,” said Trask.

He added that eight cameras monitor the parking lot and at least three security cars patrol it ‘round-the-clock.

Such shows of force offer a certain comfort, but apparently not enough for some shoppers.

“I don’t go out shopping at night unless my husband is with me because I’m afraid,” said Thelma Echazabal of Van Nuys as she walked back to her car at Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Ed Alexander of Van Nuys “won’t go near Panorama City Mall” because he fears gang violence there. As he munched popcorn in a court area of Northridge Fashion Center, he said he tries to be careful.

“It’s just not safe to make eye contact with a stranger,” Alexander said. “You don’t know what might happen.”

Some shoppers view crime, at least minor crime, as just a part of the holidays.

At the Northridge mall on Saturday afternoon, police and security guards led a handcuffed woman from a Sears store.