‘Ghost Town’ Horse Detail Seeks to Rein In Crime

Mounted police trotted into North Hills Wednesday to combat drug dealing, prostitution and other problems in a vacant, quake-damaged “ghost town,” to the delight of nearby schoolchildren and the relief of crime-weary residents.

Fifteen Los Angeles police officers on horseback began two days of daylight patrols in the Orion Avenue neighborhood to provide a high-profile deterrent to gang violence and other crimes that have flourished in the cluster of apartment buildings left vacant by the Jan. 17 quake.

The unusual tactic is the latest attempt by Los Angeles city officials to quell crime in one of the 15 so-called ghost towns in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and Mid-City areas. City crews have already boarded and fenced about 100 properties, and the city has hired private guards to patrol the vacant buildings.

In North Hills, a gritty, mostly Latino neighborhood in the northeast San Fernando Valley, crime has been a particularly stubborn problem, prompting city officials last week to increase the number of security guards from eight to 10 and to add security guards authorized to carry guns.

“This is one of the toughest areas of the San Fernando Valley,” Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the neighborhood, said at a news conference to launch the mounted patrols. The added security efforts, he said, are intended only as a stopgap measure until all the vacant buildings can be boarded up and fenced.

The mounted police were assigned to patrol the neighborhood--between Parthenia and Nordhoff streets and Burnet Avenue just east of the San Diego Freeway--until this evening, when police and city officials will evaluate the unit’s impact on crime and decide whether to bring the horses back for another stint, Alarcon said.

But the horses were already a big hit with the children who attend Langdon Elementary School in the heart of the crime-plagued ghost town. As the first four mounted officers approached the school, dozens of screaming children ran to the fence that borders the playground to get a closer look.

“I want a horse!” a young boy in a white T-shirt shouted in Spanish.

“Awesome!” shouted another youngster in English.

Residents said the mounted police are a welcome sight, but they were disappointed that the officers were to leave at nightfall, saying that the drug dealing begins in earnest after dark.

“You can’t even come home from work late at night because they try to sell you drugs,” said Leo Lopez, a four-year resident of Orion Avenue who has witnessed the takeover of vacant buildings by drug dealers and gang members.

North Hills residents have for many years been plagued by gang violence and drug dealing, prompting the city to install barricades on some side streets to halt drive-through drug sales. Police have also launched several drug-buying sting operations and are now working to bolster the local neighborhood watch program.

Police say crime reports are down, but mainly because there are fewer people around to make them.