LAPD ‘Ghost Town’ Patrol to Saddle Up Again : Police: Horseback officers applauded for trial action in quake-damaged North Hills area. They’ll be out again for at least three days next week.

Calling a two-day trial this week a success, police said Friday that mounted officers will return for at least three days next week to fight drug dealing and other crimes in a quake-damaged “ghost town” in North Hills.

During a trial stint on Wednesday and Thursday, the 15 police on horseback garnered high praise from police and neighbors after making 11 arrests for various crimes in the cluster of empty apartment buildings, including trespassing, narcotics sales and felony warrants violations.

“They’ve been pretty effective these last couple of days,” said Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Scott LaChasse. “We’ve also had a great public reaction.”

To further evaluate the unit’s impact on crime, LaChasse said the mounted officers will return Monday through Wednesday, after which police officials will decide whether they should be deployed there on a regular basis.

The reviews from residents near the area--Orion Avenue between Parthenia and Nordhoff streets just east of the San Diego Freeway--are already positive.

“The response is 100% favorable, and the residents are just tickled to death,” said Harry Coleman, chairman of a citizens anti-crime group called the North Hills Task Force. “They’ve never seen Orion this clean in 15 years.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the area, was out of town Friday, but his spokesman, Arturo Gonzalez, said North Hills residents appreciate the new police effort.

“The community is very happy,” he said. “They are encouraged by the swift action taken to curb the criminal activity.”

The mounted officers are the latest effort by city officials to crack down on 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 up about 100 buildings in those areas, and the city has hired private guards to patrol the vacant properties.

But in North Hills, gang violence, drug dealing and prostitution have flourished in the vacant units, prompting housing officials last week to increase from eight to 10 the number of private security guards and add armed guards to the unarmed force.

Coleman said the combination of extra guards and mounted police has also given residents a renewed confidence they can report crimes without fear of retaliation. “The whole program is working,” he said.

Some residents had said they were disappointed that the mounted unit did not patrol after dark, but LaChasse said the unit is less effective at night because the horses are less visible and, thus, represent less of a deterrent.

He said keeping the mounted unit out after dark on unfamiliar streets is also dangerous for the officers, who do not have the benefit of headlights like traditional police patrols.

At night, LaChasse said police can use other crime-fighting tactics such as establishing observation posts to document criminal activity or launching undercover sting operations to nab drug dealers.