Taking Back the Streets : Crime: Using everything from baseballs to books, residents tired of living in fear are uniting to battle injustices in their neighborhoods.

Ask mailman Greg Santos how to fight crime in his west Long Beach neighborhood and he’s likely to bring out a baseball or football.

Travel east across the Los Angeles River to the Burnett branch library to ask the same of librarian Mary Donberg, and the answer sits in the shelves that surround her.

Keep going east to 4th Street and Cherry Avenue where a group of neighbors, fed up with the drug dealing, the fighting, the graffiti in nearby apartment buildings, compile a detailed log of all the problems they witness. Documentation in hand, they deliver a letter demanding that the landlord clean up the problem. If they get no response, they will file suit.

In neighborhoods all over the city, dozens of small battles are being waged against crime.

They are unlikely warriors, these architects, teachers, plumbers, secretaries and parents. Armed with newsletters, baseballs, books, paintbrushes, shovels and rakes, they are determined to take their neighborhoods back. Some have been spurred to action by anger, some by grief, others by the sheer frustration that comes from watching the neighborhood they love disappear behind wrought-iron security doors and the crazy jumble of graffiti.

Yet, they all have come to share a belief: If they want to get rid of crime in their neighborhoods, it’s going to take a lot more than dialing 911.

“I just don’t think the police will save us,” said Kim Hudson, who organized a group called Vision for Long Beach after the 1992 riots. “Crime is too much out of control. Not just in my neighborhood, but all over the country.”

Their philosophy is simple.

“I will not let criminals stop me from being free,” said Mary Fehr, who lives near 12th and Cedar streets. “I will not live my life hiding in my house behind lace curtains and security bars.”

She said people are afraid to venture into their own yards. “Get out in your yard,” she said. “It’s your yard. Take it back, then take your sidewalk back, then take your street back and then take your block back.”

Fehr belongs to one of the most popular and perhaps fastest growing resident groups in the city: Neighborhood Watch.

Though the Long Beach Police Department does not know the membership in Neighborhood Watch, Sgt. Tom Taylor said the program is “growing in leaps and bounds.” At last count, 1,787 such groups had formed, representing hundreds of people who gather, often with a Police Department representative, to talk about what is happening in their neighborhoods, how they can keep their families safe and what they can do to help the police.

“No matter what the topic may be, it will always come back to drugs, crime, prostitution, homelessness because those are the issues that affect everyone,” said Ernest Villa, who four months ago started a Neighborhood Watch program on his block just off Anaheim Boulevard and Magnolia Street. “If you don’t make a stand, things start coasting, and the only way to coast is down.”

Neighborhood Watch, the Police Athletic League and DARE are three of the largest and best-known local crime prevention programs, but the fight takes dozens of forms. Most neighborhood and community organizations in the city--and they number more than 100--sponsor some type of neighborhood cleanup to paint over graffiti and pick up trash. And there are dozens of smaller efforts.

Librarian Donberg reads to children at meetings of the Washington Middle School Neighborhood Assn. and gives away books to families. In the same neighborhood, one of the city’s most troubled, day-care workers at Long Beach Day Nursery help organize tree-planting programs with area teen-agers.

Meanwhile, on Broadway, gay-rights activists patrol on weekend nights to deter hate crimes.

And at the St. Vestal C.M.E. church on Martin Luther King Boulevard, Pastor E.L. Smith started a pilot program, a Bible study for the youth who have stopped coming to Sunday services and joined area gangs.

“When they come together, they talk about how sick and fed up they are of the life they have been caught up in, and, a lot of times, by their own behavior,” Smith said. “They are looking for ways to get out of it, and a good three-fourths are scared to death.”

Across town, in relatively peaceful Belmont Shore, the Memorial Day slaying of 26-year-old William Shadden--by a couple of teen-agers who wanted his bike, police say--propelled his parents to form Citizens and Business Against Crime. The group plans to work with the school district to bring police dogs into area middle schools to ferret out drugs and guns. Solutions like these take time. Frustration is inevitable. The changes are measured over months, even years. Not everyone is willing to wait, or believes he or she will make a difference. And some of those people are buying guns.

David Skonezny, a businessman who owns a home near Pacific Coast Highway and Stanley Avenue, said he and his neighbors have become so infuriated by the growing crime in the area that several have purchased guns. Police confirm that they are seeing more and more weapons owned by the good guys and the bad.

“People here are angry,” Skonezny said. “I’ll tell you, you walk into Duane’s house down the street uninvited, he’s going to put a .357 (magnum) slug in your heart. You walk into Chester’s house next door, he’ll put a 9-millimeter slug in your heart. You walk into my house I’m going to do the same . . . We’re fed up.”

Still, Donberg is encouraged because several parents of the children she reads to have become regular patrons of Burnett Library.

And the neighbors around 4th and Cherry, who threaten irresponsible landlords with lawsuits, have seen apartment buildings cleaned up. Villa says that in a six-week period after he formed the Neighborhood Watch group, four drug dealers left the area. Community activists say that the simple act of getting together with their neighbors helps. Everyone agrees it is better than sitting back and watching it happen, or just giving up and leaving town.

“It’s a person-to-person kind of gain. It’s not a big event and the world is better,” said Mary Soth, Long Beach Day Nursery executive director. “It happens in little persistent steps.”

Santos, the mailman and a leader in the West Long Beach Little League, says just giving kids a safe place to hang out, have fun and feel good about themselves is important.

“We can’t solve all the problems on a football or baseball field. But if you do a little bit, every bit of it helps,” he said. “It takes people to care.”

‘Years ago, (police officers) had orders to say there were no gangs. . . . (Officials wanted Long Beach) to be known as an international city. They figured crime would go away. And if gang members are just shooting at each other and not affecting anyone else, it didn’t matter. But by ignoring it, it’s caused a catastrophic problem.’

NORM SORENSON, Long Beach’s only gang detective over most of the last 13 years

‘I do worry about crime. It’s to the point where, and this is not a joke, every day when I come through the front door, I look for the television and the VCR to make sure they are still there.’

JOHN PLADSON, Aerospace engineer who lives near 3rd Street and Cherry Avenue

‘We’ve got to talk about getting to kids, while they’re in school, with tangible rewards, such as jobs. The promise of equal opportunity has been abandoned for 20 years, and they know it. The reason these crimes are heinous is because kids see no prospect for jobs, for a good future. We lose them. We just lose them.’

MARC COLEMAN, President of a community watchdog group that pushes for youth programs

‘I had two burglaries on my block (recently) while I was out of town on vacation. When that happens out here, people go out. “That’s it (they say); let’s go to Orange County.” The only reason we don’t have an even greater number of people leaving is that housing prices are down.”

LES ROBBINS, City councilman and lifelong resident of the eastside who plans to leave Long Beach after retiring.

Fighting Back

Dozens of local organizations fight crime with community participation. Here are a few:

* Neighborhood Watch--A Police Department program that helps neighbors organize and keep an eye on their area. Doris Thompson: (310) 570-7220.

* Project Open Eyes--Safe Streets Now, a program that trains residents to document problems in nearby rental properties and file lawsuits against landlords if the nuisances continue. Betsy Bredau: (310) 491-0520.

* Long Beach Area Compact--A broad-based program working with businesses willing to create apprenticeship programs, provide part-time employment and offer money for scholarships. Donna W. Cole: (310) 436-9931, Ext. 6840.

* Vision for Long Beach--A community group that formed after last year’s riots to organize volunteers for various projects. Kim Hudson: (310) 438-2864.

* Community Planning--A city department that helps neighborhoods get organized, prepare newsletters and address issues such as traffic problems, landscaping and crime. Gerry Felgemaker: (310) 570-6894.

Violent Crime Comparison

NUMBER OF INCIDENTS CITY POP. OFFICERS 1988 1989 1990 1991 Portland, Ore. 437,319 881 8,719 8,084 7,850 8,144 Kansas City, Mo. 435,146 1,129 8,318 8,996 11,086 12,414 Long Beach 429,433 791 5,153 7,169 8,403 9,209 Tucson, Ariz. 405,390 748 3,527 3,851 3,680 3,896 Charlotte, N.C. 395,934 988 6,815 7,641 9,119 8,752 Oakland 372,242 539 6,049 5,555 5,845 9,464 Sacramento 369,365 579 3,582 3,658 3,970 4,896

CITY 1992 Portland, Ore. 8,410 Kansas City, Mo. 12,596 Long Beach 6,925 Tucson, Ariz. 4,327 Charlotte, N.C. 9,456 Oakland 10,140 Sacramento 4,674

Note: Population is based on 1990 U.S. Census

Violent crimes are classified by the FBI as willful homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Sources: California Department of Justice Statistical Analysis bureau, Oregon Law Enforcement Crime Reporting bureau, Tucson Department of Public Safety, Kansas City Police Department, North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission