Fear is Starting to Run Our Lives : Bit by bit, growing concern about crime is causing some people to change the way they live, where they go, even how they dress.

“There are mothers in (Venice) who tuck their babies into bed at night in bathtubs because of the bullets.” -State Treasurer Kathleen Brown at a fund-raiser in Beverly Hills

*

It’s come to this: police stations installing ATMs, mothers afraid to take their kids to the supermarket, businessmen trading in their bulky briefcases for backpacks.

Slowly and subtly, fear of crime is reshaping the way many Southern Californians live.

“Fear,” says Los Angeles psychiatrist Mark Goulston, “is starting to run our lives.”

From Anaheim Hills to Watts, people are adopting a series of rituals--big and small--to avoid becoming another statistic. And although the chances of becoming the victim of a serious crime on any given day are remote, it’s the perception that crime is rampant that counts.

Of course, some Southern Californians just shake their heads and go about their business; but others are putting much more thought into what were once simple daily tasks. Rather than just hop over to the mall, they are now mapping out safe routes with all the precision of Lewis and Clark. They are watching for suspicious motorists and pedestrians, taking the minimum amount of money or credit cards, staking out the safest possible parking space and, along the way, leaving stranded motorists in the dust.

And they are doing this with little fanfare, reasoning, hey, we’re just changing with the changing times.

The result? They are arming themselves with weapons of the ‘90s: personal security alarms and cellular phones programmed to speed-dial 911. And they are fast losing trust in their fellow man, woman or child.

Observes Goulston: “I don’t think it’s sunk in totally. We’re in a transition phase from a free and easy kind of place to a dangerous place . . . (and) we’re not really letting ourselves feel the meaning of what we’re doing.”

*

Debra Centrella wouldn’t be caught dead in a bank--not since that lazy afternoon last summer when she walked into a quiet Arcadia bank and found herself face down on the floor with a gun at her back. She has since refused to set foot in even the safest-looking financial institution.

“Normally, I would have had my young daughter with me at the bank. Thank God on that day I went before I picked her up at summer school,” says the 38-year-old dress designer.

Centrella, who lives in the San Gabriel Valley foothills, says she does not scare easily. “But in the bank, I was terrified. I guess I still am. I won’t go into another bank. I do all my business by phone or by mail. The way I feel now, I’ll bounce a check before I go into another bank.”

The memory still haunts her. Waiting at a window to make a deposit, Centrella suddenly heard a man scream, “Everybody down!”

She dropped to the ground, flung her purse under a nearby desk and buried her head in her arms.

“I looked up for a second and saw this guy with a sweat shirt pulled over his head grabbing cash from the tellers and throwing it in this cardboard box. He just kept screaming profanities at us. He sounded desperate--and angry, really angry . . .”

“This man took over the entire bank; we were totally in his power. He had complete control; he could’ve done anything he wanted with us.

“And when I see people strolling innocently into a bank with little kids in tow, I want to yell out and warn them: ‘Don’t take your children to the bank! Don’t do it! Bad things can happen.’ ”

*

“How many places are we going to have to avoid before we feel safe?” wonders sociologist Dane Archer of UC Santa Cruz. “If we continue on this path, there will be a small number of safe, rural places and a huge map of no man’s land where people are afraid to live, work, play or study.”

On Nov. 2, the Los Angeles City Council voted to install automated teller machines in two city police stations. Police Chief Willie Williams conceded that this is not the cure for bank crime, but supports the experiment nevertheless.

Archer, who has written extensively on crime and violence in America, calls the idea “pathetic.”

“Putting ATMs in police stations is like saying the battle is lost, we give up, “ he says. “It means that when we are faced with the fear of crime, rather than do something about crime, we will try to do something to make sure the crimes don’t touch us.

“Instead of curing the plague, we’re trying to find new ways to avoid it.”

*

Two well-dressed women walk out of City Hall and, without missing a step, re-dress for the street. Shoulder bags are pulled across their chests. Engagement-ring stones are turned inward. And the Ray-Bans are flipped down.

Now, they’re ready for lunch--and for whatever hazards lurk between City Hall and the restaurant two blocks away.

“Oh, yeah, this is automatic now. I don’t even think about it anymore,” explains a secretary in her 20s, who will not give her name, age or address. (“That would be just asking for trouble, don’t you think?”)

Women--and it does seem to be women who are more likely to take such sartorial precautions--are creating a new kind of fashion: the anti-crime look. It’s functional, it’s comfortable, and most of all, it’s great for fast getaways.

Follow Downtown lawyers from the courthouse to the bus stop and you’ll see lawyerly pin-stripes accessorized with running shoes and sweat socks, instead of high heels and stockings.

“If I have to run away from some thug, I want to do it in Nikes, not Ferragamos,” confides one street-smart attorney.

A small but growing number of executives--male as well as female--are changing more than their footwear. Instead of toting bulky and expensive leather briefcases on that potentially perilous walk from office to garage, some are hefting easy-to-wear backpacks.

“This leaves my hands free,” one backpacker says, smiling.

Free for what? “For whatever is necessary,” he says solemnly.

Camouflaging valuables is nothing new for city dwellers, but the quiet ways they are doing so are increasingly creative.

Michelle, a 32-year-old mother who lives in the Fairfax district, secretes her valuables among other less-tempting contents of her baby’s diaper bag.

Some younger women say they’ve abandoned purses altogether, stuffing cash and a few credit cards into coat or pants pockets.

“For big trips, like Disneyland,” says Maria Gonzales, “I’ll strap on a fanny pack but I wear it in the front so I can be sure nobody is getting into it.”

A woman who works near Skid Row says she never carries a purse when she walks to lunch or errands in the L.A. Mall. Instead, she stows her essentials for the trip in a nondescript and slightly battered manila envelope.

“I also have a set of clothes that border on ‘bag lady’ that I put on if I’m especially worried about the neighborhood,” says the woman. “I am not paranoid, but I’m not stupid either.”

*

Unlike in New York City--where it takes a true old-timer to remember when camping overnight in Central Park was safe--many Southern Californians can easily recall a Los Angeles without barred windows, freeway shootings and curfews at the beach.

“We used to go to Griffith Park a lot at night . . . or Hollywood,” says Sharon Mitchell, 43, of Compton. “Now that’s out. . . . I don’t even go to drive-in movie theaters (anymore). When you’re in your car, you have a tendency to relax and get into the movie. Uh-uh.”

Raisa Mikaelian, 69, also remembers a safer Los Angeles, a place where she and her husband, Mike, did not have to lock their Downtown jewelry store during business hours. “This looked like a friendly place; customers came and went,” she recalls. “There were no problems like today.”

After several break-ins, Mikaelian’s Spring Street shop is now fortified to discourage the homeless men who look in her window and other people who frighten her. “I only let people in who look decent,” she says. “Now, it’s more scary.”

But Mikaelian and others interviewed showed little outrage about having to make such accommodations to their fears.

*

“You want to know what all this says? Well, I’ll tell you,” says Los Angeles police Sgt. Christopher West. “It says we’re preoccupied with crime. It says we have grown so tolerant of living with crime, that we take all these precautions without a second thought. And you want to know the saddest part? Nobody’s shocked by it. We don’t even shock ourselves. And that’s sad, real sad.”

West has been a police officer for 19 years, 11 of them on the beat where he has watched how women change their outlook as well as their attire to face down crime. “One thing cops always notice is how women hold their purses different at night or in a threatening atmosphere. Instead of having it flopping around beside them, they might shorten the strap, or tuck it under their arm like a football.

“This sort of thing probably has some value if it makes you feel better about yourself or walk taller or gives you a little more attitude,” he says.

But such behavior by itself will not make our streets safe, West says. Without promising a cure for crime, his unit nevertheless is seeking sponsors for a project to provide free maps of Los Angeles County showing the locations of all police stations.

“So often we tell people, if you’ve got trouble, drive to your nearest police station. This project will help people find that station in a hurry,” says West, adding that the maps will also include instructions for using 911 from a car phone.

“The police can’t be everywhere,” he says. “Some things we’ve got to do for ourselves.”

*

Andrea N. Harris, 24, is one of those taking care of herself. In her car, the Cheviot Hills resident keeps a citizens band radio handy. When traveling at night, she always tells friends her route and calls them when she gets home.

And she pays close attention to “what cars are around me and how long they’ve been there--and sometimes I’ll change lanes if I think someone’s following me.”

Parking is also a safety issue. “As I walk to the car, I look under it and then I check the back seat as I get in.”

She’s not alone.

Many people, women in particular, stay out of parking structures with poor lighting or obstructed views.

“A woman in a parking lot will always know where everyone else in the lot is, how close they are to her and which direction they’re heading,” says Harris’ roommate Monica Leveque, 25.

Leveque also leaves her daughter at home while shopping or running errands at night. “I can move faster without her,” she explains. “You need to feel light, like you would be able to have a chance.”

*

“What happens when you tell your kids they can’t walk next door at night . . . when you (routinely) look in the mirrors while you’re driving to make sure you’re not being followed . . . when you’re afraid to use an ATM?” asks psychiatrist Goulston.

“We’re teaching our children to be motivated by fear instead of desire in life. And one problem with being fear-driven is, it inhibits you from taking the kind of risks that make life more fulfilling. . . . It tends to turn vitality into caution.”

*

“How can you live like this?” a visitor from Kansas City, Kan., asked a Westside woman recently after a discussion of the rituals she follows to avoid crime.

Pam Verdone of Anaheim Hills, a native Southern Californian who moved to Richmond, Va., a few years ago and recently returned, understands such questions.

In Virginia, she says, “We talked to a lot more people. If you were passing someone on the street, you didn’t hesitate to say hello or start a conversation. Here, you don’t. You don’t know (whom you’re dealing with).”

Leveque agrees: “You have so much guard up that you don’t connect with other people as easily. . . . You’re afraid to even stop for someone broken down on the highway because it could be a trick. . . . We may not be known as the friendly city (we once were).”

Psychologist Roger Cole says he lives in “one of the safest areas around,” but that hasn’t stopped him from arming his home, his wife, and even their toddler’s stroller with alarms.

The Coles’ crime-consciousness was raised the day their Del Mar home was burglarized during the day.

“Someone just walked in in the middle of the day. Our housekeeper was upstairs and the burglar was downstairs. He got all the family jewelry and walked out,” Cole says. “To say we felt violated is to understate the impact.”

Besides alarming the house, garage and all family members (including the baby-sitter), Cole says the family is beginning to think defensively as well.

“If anybody starts acting strangely or threatening around our baby, we (could) just pull the pin on the stroller alarm and a sound like a car alarm goes off. We haven’t had to use it yet, but we’re prepared to,” he says.

“As a psychologist, I must say this is very unhealthy. It makes it harder to trust people. It increases the alienation that’s already there,” he says. “And this probably becomes self-fulfilling. Because we are all so untrusting of each other, we can’t get together to solve the problem, so we find more alienated people out there who end up committing crimes. And on and on it goes . . . “