Venezuelans Say They’ve Had It Up to Here, Join Forces Against Crime : Caracas: Some feel the city is not as dangerous as newspapers make it seem but all agree burglary and mugging are everywhere.

A gang of burglars was raiding Leonor Blanco’s hillside slum, so she and her neighbors armed themselves with metal pipes, a pistol and a shotgun.

When the gang came again, the vigilantes captured one of the burglars. A few days later, they hunted the others down and shot one in the leg.

The reaction in Petare, a slum on the eastern fringe of Caracas, illustrates the frustration and fear that keep many of the capital’s 4 million people locked in their homes.

“If you go out on the streets most nights, you won’t find anyone,” said Magaly Sanchez, a sociologist at the Central University of Caracas.

Crime touches the rich as well as the poor. One-third of respondents to a Gallup Poll conducted in February and March had been crime victims in the previous 12 months and 72% had close friends or relatives who were victims.

More than 2,000 murders were reported to Caracas police last year, compared to 1,900 in New York City, which has nearly twice the population.

The true number is probably higher. Officials at the city morgue say they receive the bodies of about six homicide victims every weekday and an average of 25 each weekend--Friday night through Sunday. Many bodies are taken directly to cemeteries by relatives, and never pass through the morgue.

In May, tens of thousands of motorists drove to work with their headlights on in a nationwide protest demanding action against crime, which Interior Minister Ramon Escovar Salom has called Venezuela’s most serious problem.

Some residents and officials feel hysteria has taken over, that Caracas is not as dangerous as newspaper headlines make it seem.

Daly Senior, director of the morgue, said most murder victims are gang members or delinquents, and the rest of the population is relatively safe.

Maybe so, but burglary and mugging are everywhere.

Nicolino Tadeo, who owns a shoe factory and lives in the well-guarded Los Naranjos district, said thieves had ransacked his home twice and held him up four times. One gang of burglars even took his whiskey, his children’s video games and his two Japanese dogs.

Tadeo, his wife and two children are taking karate lessons and taking pistol practice.

In the slums, where one-third of the city’s people live, many residents say they rarely go out after dark because armed gangs prowl the streets. Police say murder is routine for gang members, who kill each other for reasons as trivial as stolen sneakers.

Hopelessness and frustration drive many youngsters into gangs, said Xiomara Tortoza, a crusader for the poor. She said Venezuela’s great oil wealth benefits only a few people while 80% of Venezuelans live in poverty, with poor schools, hospitals and job prospects.

Some people claim police themselves commit crimes they are supposed to prevent.

“We have to watch out for both the gangs and the police because we don’t know which is worse,” Blanco said.

Col. Jose Rangel Teran, deputy commander of the city police, said corrupt officers are a minority and are being rooted out.

Violence has taken its toll on police as well: Rangel said 150 of the department’s 8,000 officers had been killed in the last two years.

Police are strengthening neighborhood and night patrols, enforcing an 11 p.m. curfew for minors, improving officer training and conducting such programs as paying cash for guns that are turned in.

Few feel those steps are adequate.

When her 19-year-old son leaves home every morning, Blanco said, “I don’t know if he’ll return.”