Patrols by Nation of Islam Cut Violence : Security: Crime drops at low-income Venice apartments after hiring of unarmed teams to guard drug-infested area.

In eight weeks on the job, security guards affiliated with minister Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam have quietly brought order to 15 low-income apartment buildings in Venice that had been hostage to drug dealing and gangs.

Crime figures show a dramatic drop in incidents at the federally subsidized buildings, and residents and neighbors say the unarmed guards from N.O.I. Security Agency, who patrol in slate-gray uniforms and distinctive red bow ties, have freed playgrounds, shooed away the men who clustered near entrances at all hours and offered a ray of hope into a neighborhood still jittery after the spring riots.

“We can see the difference. The building seems to be quiet,” said Mara Perez, who lives in one of the buildings known collectively as Holiday Venice. She said she now feels more comfortable letting her three children, including a deaf son, use the play area that on weekends had been a hangout for young men from the area.

“When these people are there, it’s hard for me to let him go down there,” Perez said.

“Even people who were skeptics are saying, ‘Wow, this is really great,’ ” said tenant activist Regina Hyman, who led a yearlong drive to replace the management’s on-site security consultant with Nation of Islam patrols after hearing that the group had swept drug dealers from housing projects on the East Coast.

But no one is declaring a victory yet over the lucrative drug trade in Venice’s Oakwood area. In daylight, young men on street corners signal brazenly to passing drivers not far from the apartment buildings where the dealing used to occur behind the safety of locked gates.

Now those gates are guarded by pairs of N.O.I. guards who, residents say, patrol the complexes in a low-key manner that has provided a firm presence without sparking retaliation from local gang members, as many feared.

The group has plenty of muscle to flex when it wants, though. Two days before Thanksgiving, an N.O.I. guard was threatened by a gang member at a complex on Indiana Avenue. The next day, 80 to 100 suited Nation of Islam members rolled onto the site. Marching double-time in military formation, they took up positions on each side of the street for two hours, according to Los Angeles police, who quietly cheered the display.

“It was a good show of force and it was impressive, but I hesitate to say it was the last word in that battle. I hope it was,” said Lt. Kent Setty, who oversees police patrols in Oakwood.

N.O.I. field officers declined to be interviewed and supervisors did not return calls requesting comments.

Despite N.O.I.’s apparent effectiveness in chasing the crack dealers from the scattered buildings, some neighbors complain that they simply move into the streets or return when the 14 guards are off duty. The firm’s $53,676-a-month patrol contract from Alliance Housing Management Inc. provides for round-the-clock protection only on the first and 15th days of each month, when welfare and some Social Security checks are delivered and, managers say, crime typically picks up.

But N.O.I. has adapted to the cat-and-mouse game with the drug dealers by working unpredictable shifts that include a regular weekend presence.

“When the Nation is there, it’s great. When they’re not there, it’s terrible. They need a 24-hour-a-day patrol,” said the neighbor of a Holiday Venice building on Brooks Avenue that has long been a hot spot of gang activity.

Capt. Jan Carlson, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division, said the patrols have helped police catch more of the drug dealers by pushing them into the streets. “It makes it a lot easier for us because they’re not behind locked gates,” she said.

Crime has plummeted at the 15 complexes since N.O.I. took over Nov. 1, according to figures compiled by the city attorney’s office, which monitors problem properties. The buildings were the scene of 320 crimes and arrests in the 10 months before N.O.I. took over--an average of 32 per month. But from Nov. 1 to Dec. 14, there were 12, a monthly average of eight.

“The numbers are significant,” said Mary Clare Molidor, an assistant city attorney who works with a special drug-fighting unit. “I’d like to see what the numbers are going to be six months from now.”

N.O.I.’s selection for the job was criticized by Jewish leaders, who said Farrakhan’s black Muslim organization has a history of violence and anti-Semitism and was unfit to provide security for the Oakwood properties. But the contract, the group’s first to patrol federally assisted housing in California, was approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Los Angeles Police Commission, which granted N.O.I. a patrol license in September, has received no complaints about the firm, said Detective Richard Rudell, who heads the commission’s permit applications branch.

Meanwhile, authorities are targeting five blocks in the heart of Oakwood--containing five of the Holiday Venice complexes--for a multi-agency effort to clean up crime by zeroing in on problem properties. Federal marshals temporarily seized a Holiday Venice building Oct. 23, saying Alliance Housing Management had failed to stem drug dealing there. HUD also ordered Alliance to place armed guards on 24-hour duty at three other sites before N.O.I. took over.

An Oakwood “community-impact team”--the city’s sixth such effort targeting a troubled neighborhood--will bring together representatives from various city agencies with residents and local groups to attack crime and related problems, such as building and health violations. The team, which held its first training session Wednesday, also plans to shore up other community services, such as recreation. A similar effort was launched in El Sereno last month.

The N.O.I. patrols have quickly won praise throughout the beachside community, a racially mixed jumble of aging bungalows and modern condominiums covering less than half a square mile west of Lincoln Boulevard.

“This has been the best thing I’ve ever seen down here,” said Don Tollefson, who lives in Oakwood and owns an apartment building that was damaged by a mob in the spring riots. “People feel a tremendous difference. . . . You can’t drive down the street and stop in front of the HUD buildings and buy drugs now.”

Residents of the Holiday Venice buildings say they hope N.O.I. guards will succeed where police and earlier security steps failed, despite lingering concern about possible gang retaliation against the guards. Observers said the security firm has signaled a non-confrontational approach by meeting with gang members from the Venice Shoreline Crips to explain its role at the complexes.

“The reason N.O.I. is doing so well, even if there is something in the air about retaliation, is it’s mainly black on black. Nobody can be called a racist,” said one black resident manager, who declined to be identified.

“A lot of people were saying an unarmed person is never going to work,” said Alliance Vice President David Itkin. “LAPD told us that. The city attorney told us that. I think we’ve shown that’s not the truth.”

But will the calm last?

“I don’t think anyone can say,” Itkin said. “This may be perfectly great for a few months and then go all to hell.”