Inglewood Hoping to Rescue Its Image : Tourism: Officials say the city has been unfairly portrayed as dangerous. They hope to deploy trucks to assist--and reassure--visitors.

It is the Achilles heel of the city: the perception that Inglewood is a dangerous place.

Inglewood is home to the Forum--where the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and Kings hockey team play--and to the Hollywood Park horse-racing track.

But for years, especially since the movie “Grand Canyon” in 1991 painted the city as a dangerous place, some tourists and Southland residents have been afraid to come here for fear of becoming crime victims.

In an effort to reduce visitors’ fears, officials plan to deploy brightly colored rescue vehicles to help motorists stranded by a flat tire, a dead battery or an empty gas tank.

Also in the works is a plan for a city-run radio station to give motorists traffic reports and directions to major tourist venues in the city.

The three rescue trucks would patrol the areas surrounding visitor attractions in the city and would cost about $22,000 to $25,000 to equip. Part-time drivers would be employed for another $25,000, including benefits, said Assistant City Manager Norman Cravens.

“These proposals are aimed at making our visitors feel more comfortable and safe in Inglewood,” Cravens said. “They’re primarily designed to (appease) some of the negative perceptions people may have.”

Cravens and others acknowledge that Inglewood has crime. But overall, crime in the city has declined since 1978. Over 15 years, the number of serious crimes, including homicides, rapes, assaults, auto theft and arson, has dropped from 10,385 incidents to 8,460.

From 1992 to 1993, crime dropped in every major category except homicide, which rose 19%--from 37 to 44 slayings--and rape, which rose 5%--from 65 to 68 incidents. Auto theft dropped 12%, grand larceny declined 11% and aggravated assault was down 24%.

But the purpose of the rescue vehicles is to address visitors’ fears, not police statistics, officials said.

The visitor-assistance proposals will be presented first to the Partnership for Progress, a consortium of representatives from the Forum, Hollywood Park, Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, Centinela Hospital and Inglewood Park Cemetery.

If the consortium approves the plan, it would then go to the City Council. Under the proposal, Partners for Progress would buy the vehicles and the city would hire the drivers.

“A proposal like this fits well,” Cravens said, “because we don’t really think people have fear while they’re on the properties at the Forum or Hollywood Park--they all have huge security--and we don’t feel people have any real fear when they are on the freeways. This would be perimeter patrol.”

Visitors’ fear of Inglewood became a headache for city officials after “Grand Canyon,” with Steve Martin and Danny Glover, was released in December, 1992.

Mark Sinaguglia, president of the Inglewood Chamber of Commerce, discussed the movie as though he were a soldier explaining the battle story behind a disfiguring scar.

With a sense of dread, Sinaguglia watched the movie’s hero blunder through a tangle of blighted streets and into the arms of a menacing gang. Then came the actual wound: “When the hero is asked where he is,” Sinaguglia said, “He says he is lost in Inglewood! Everybody (was) ready to throw apples and oranges and tomatoes at the movie screen.”

The scene was shot in Los Angeles, but most people do not know that, he said.

Claire L. Rothman, general manager of the Forum, said crime on the property is rare.

“We keep a file of all things that happen,” she said. “It’s so infrequent that we know every single time when somebody reports having a car scratched by a key or a mirror broken off or even a missing car.”

None of the officials at Hollywood Park, the Forum nor the city have conducted a survey of visitors to determine their perceptions about Inglewood, but they say they don’t feel they have to. Their colleagues in business associations, friends in other communities and people they encounter often ask them if Inglewood is dangerous.