Anaheim Crime Puts City, Disney on Guard : Safety: Prevention programs are aimed at avoiding Miami-like tourist violence around amusement park.

Another Miami?

To a city dominated by tourism, the image is a jarring one. But there it was in black and white, an ominous prediction by Anaheim’s interim police chief that a tourist might one day become a victim of spreading gang violence in the city.

“Hardly a weekend goes by without a gang-related shooting,” then-Chief Jimmie Kennedy wrote in a confidential memo last Nov. 9 to the city manager about department staffing levels. “Several gang territories are within a mile of Disneyland. There is great potential for another Miami incident.”

Comparing Anaheim to a city where nine tourists have been murdered may be harsh, city officials said last week, but they agreed that crime is Anaheim’s most serious and vexing problem. It’s a concern shared by many residents and businesses in the area, including one of the county’s most powerful corporate citizens: the Walt Disney Co.

The extent of the potential problem is not lost on Disney, which last year brought a hockey team to Anaheim and is now weighing a $3-billion expansion of Disneyland.

Disney officials acknowledge they are concerned about crime issues in Anaheim and are trying to do something about them. Whether motivated by altruism, enlightened self-interest, or both, Disney officials have embarked on a highly visible campaign to attack the sources and symptoms of crime in the community’s worst neighborhoods.

Recently, they have swapped Mighty Ducks tickets for 106 guns, organized a youth hockey program called Disney GOALS to give underprivileged youngsters something to keep them off the streets, and formed a quasi-partnership with local school districts to provide job training and educational opportunities. Additionally, they have planned a massive new resort around Disneyland that would effectively give a face-lift to some of the city’s most blighted commercial areas.

“We’re doing everything we can with our programs to make a difference, and keep people moving in the right direction,” said Ron Dominguez, executive vice president of Walt Disney Attractions. “We recognize there’s a need to help our young people, and give them alternatives to destructive behavior.”

But is Disney doing all this only to protect its investment in Disneyland?

“So what?” says Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim Visitor & Convention Bureau. “Everybody should be trying to protect their investments here. Anaheim is pretty fragile. We’re getting competition (for tourism money) from everywhere. . . . Maybe what Disney is doing will start a trend.”

Disney’s View

Disney officials say the programs they sponsor are not started out of concerns over crime, but rather because they want to be a “good corporate neighbor. This is nothing new to us,” said Dominguez, noting that the company has a long history of community involvement.

Nonetheless, Disney officials acknowledge being acutely aware of crime.

“I think as citizens of any community you should do whatever can be done to deter crime,” Dominguez said. “It should be everybody’s concern.”

Randall Gaston, Anaheim’s new police chief, agreed that Disney has a tradition of community involvement. But, he said, “it appears they’re getting much more involved in programs directly. . . . It’s something that’s needed in this community.”

Both Gaston and Dominguez dismiss the notion that Anaheim is on the verge of becoming another Miami.

Said Gaston: “I don’t think the same conditions exist here.”

“I have more confidence in our community being able to control any real negative crime situations,” said Dominguez.

City Manager James D. Ruth agrees that the crime problem can be solved, but recognizes that there is potential for disaster. He said the information in the memo by Kennedy, who had been with the department for 29 years and was chief from 1980 to 1988, was disconcerting. Kennedy had returned from retirement to head the department while a search was underway to replace Chief Joseph T. Molloy, who died of a heart attack last July.

“This (crime problem) is something that we can’t sweep under the rug,” said Ruth, noting that in the next couple of weeks he plans to approach the Anaheim City Council with plans to hire 22 additional officers.

Disney officials have always been deeply concerned about crime--and the public’s perception of it--in and around Disneyland. The company goes to great lengths to make sure that the “Happiest Place on Earth” is also one of the safest.

The number of security officers patrolling the park and Disneyland Hotel, in fact, exceeds the number of police officers patrolling the entire city. Currently, there are 382 Disneyland security officers responsible for about 250 acres, compared to 352 sworn police officers covering the 30,800 acres within the city.

Inside Disneyland

Disneyland officials rarely discuss crime at the park. But a glimpse of Disneyland’s crime problem was revealed in environmental and planning documents released two years ago for the currently planned $3-billion expansion.

According to those documents, there were 5,292 security incidents reported at the park in 1991. Anaheim police officers, however, were only called to respond 1,084 times. The most commonly reported incidents were theft, vandalism, assault and battery, auto thefts, shoplifting and trespassing.

Disney security officers prefer to investigate such incidents themselves, interrogating witnesses, collecting evidence and writing their own incident reports before handing cases over to police.

Deputy City Manager Tom Wood rates Disneyland among the safest places in the city.

“They do a good job of controlling their environment,” he said.

Outside Disneyland’s borders it is a different story.

Within a mile of the park are some of Anaheim’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods, where gang-related shootings are not uncommon, police said. More than 51 gangs have been identified in the city.

Disney’s concerns about nearby crime apparently prompted a key change in the proposed expansion project.

Initially, Disney officials said they planned to have a shopping promenade that would open to the public. But when the final plans were unveiled, Disney had put the shopping district inside the park, effectively excluding the public. Sources close to the project said the change was made because of crime concerns, but Dominguez discounted that notion.

Furthermore, the expanded Anaheim complex will have guests driving directly from freeway off-ramps into parking structures, bypassing Anaheim’s streets. Disney said that was designed to avoid traffic problems, not crime.

Disney is not alone in its concern over crime.

Many hotel and motel managers in the area are also mindful of the crime picture, and how it affects tourism. “It’s an industrywide problem,” said Ned Snavely, general manager of the Anaheim Marriott and board member of the Anaheim Visitor & Convention Bureau. “Everybody is aware of it.”

Perception Can Hurt

How bad is the problem?

Some city officials and business leaders say it’s not as bad as many people, including retired Chief Kennedy, perceive it to be. But for a community that makes its living on tourism, perception can be as damaging as reality.

“Anaheim has every reason to be concerned,” said John Poimiroo, director of the California division of tourism in Sacramento. “Tourism is extremely vulnerable to crime and violence.”

Unlike natural disasters that disrupt the flow of tourists, like fires or earthquakes, crime has a more protracted impact on tourism, he said. Tourism in Florida, he said, has suffered greatly because of the violence there.

Ahlers, the head of the Visitor & Convention Bureau, said that tourism is always at the mercy of public perception.

“Right now we’re doing OK,” Ahlers said. “Anaheim may not be the safest place in the world, but we’re not labeled unsafe either.”

Police acknowledge that violent crimes have increased in the city over the past 10 years. For example there were 11 homicides in 1983 compared to 35 in 1992, and 26 in 1993. Aggravated assaults in 1992--the most current statistics available--were also up more than 35% since 1986, according to the state Department of Justice.

Still, Anaheim has considerably less violent crime than Miami, according to statistics from the FBI. There were 3.42 murders for every 10,000 residents of Miami in 1992--the last year for which such figures were available--compared to 1.27 per every 10,000 residents of Anaheim. Residents of Miami suffered more than twice as many rapes per capita and about six times as many robberies and assaults, the statistics show.

Gaston, who was appointed police chief last month, said the city is trying to cope with the gang and drug problems that are plaguing many Southern California communities. He said that while some violent crimes have increased over the years, the city has experienced a drop in some other crimes such as property crimes and theft.

Part of the problem is that Anaheim police are being stretched thinner. There are twice as many calls for service as there were 10 years ago, but the department has added only 10% more officers to deal with the increased workload. The city’s population--now 285,477--grew by 26% over the same 10-year period.

By almost all accounts, the officers in Anaheim are doing a better job with fewer resources than 10 years ago. And, the city is aggressively pursuing community policing efforts that attempt to draw on all the city’s departments and resources together to combat crime.

But the efforts of the police and city alone are not enough, City Manager Ruth said.

“Citizens and the business community need to take responsibility for the problem and get involved,” Ruth said. “People need to step up to the plate and help--like Disney. What they are doing is real positive.”

Tale of Two Cities

Several months ago, Anaheim’s interim police chief said the city’s gang and drug problem created a “great potential for another Miami incident”--an allusion to the robbery-slayings of tourists that has prompted several foreign governments to discourage tourism there. Acomparison of crime rates per 10,000 residents for 1992 shows that crime is considerably more pervasive in Miami.

VIOLENT CRIMES

Miami Anaheim Murder 3.42 1.27 Rape 7.28 3.26 Robbery 189.01 32.25 Assault 173.36 26.49 Total violent crimes 373.07 63.26 PROPERTY CRIMES Miami Anaheim Burglary 323.20 143.35 Motor vehicle theft 233.02 125.80 Arson 6.88 4.16 Larceny 819.52 345.48 Total property crimes 1,382.62 618.79 TOTAL FOR ALL CRIMES 1,755.69 682.05

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports

Researched by Matt Lait / Los Angeles Times