Police Saddle Up for ‘Ghost Town’ : Quake: In a move against gangs and drugs, 15 mounted officers begin two days of daylight patrols in North Hills neighborhood.

Mounted police trotted into North Hills on Wednesday to combat drug-dealing, prostitution and other problems in a vacant, quake-damaged “ghost town,” to the delight of watching 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 Valley, crime has been a particularly stubborn problem, prompting city officials last week to increase the total number of guards from eight to 10 and add guards authorized to carry guns to the unarmed patrols previously assigned.

“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 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 kids ran to the fence that borders the playground to get a closer look.

“I want a horse,” a chubby 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 would depart at nightfall today, 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.

Harry Coleman, chairman of the anti-crime citizens group called the North Hills Task Force, was more optimistic, saying: “The security guards have made a heck of an impact on the neighborhood and the mounted police will be a big deterrent.”

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.

Although reports of major crimes are down about 29% in the North Hills area since the quake, police say that’s primarily because there are fewer people around to make them. They also believe much of the crime now takes place within the vacant buildings, where it is harder to see and stop.

The LAPD’s mounted unit is no stranger to crime fighting in urban settings. LAPD Lt. Earl Paysingersaid mounted police regularly tour mall parking lots in the inner city, as well as Downtown business districts during the holiday season and the Venice beach boardwalk on summer weekends.

“A lot of people think we just do parades and festivals,” he said. “But our primary objective is high-profile crime fighting.”