Isolated Incidents : Recent violence has rocked Coto de Caza, where the bucolic setting attracts adults but leaves kids with little to do. Community leaders say youth-oriented activities lower the crime rate.

Bernie Moran says he and his wife moved to this upscale South County gated community for two reasons: They liked the house--a two-story, five bedroom “family home”--and they liked the location.

The fact that it is one of the safest places in the county was a bonus.

But the security the 45-year-old attorney felt living behind the guarded gates of Coto de Caza was shattered Halloween night.

He and another Coto de Caza man were badly beaten by a mob of teen-agers while returning from trick-or-treating with their young sons. Moran suffered a broken rib, a fractured ankle and facial bruises from being pummeled by fists and rocks after he got out of his car to ask the scores of unruly teen-agers blocking the road to move.

“The thing that may have been a little deceptive,” he concedes, “is I believed because I was in such a safe community that I could approach these kids because they were the kids of my neighbors. But obviously the little darlings didn’t have that sentiment.”

The separate beatings of Moran and race-car driver Rocky Moran (no relation) sent shock waves throughout a community that considers itself largely immune to the crime and violence that afflicts communities outside its guarded gate.

Residents, who have vowed to prosecute the perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law, met this week to discuss the incident, their security and possible preventive measures. About half of the more than 40 high-school-age suspects and witnesses so far interviewed by Sheriff’s Department investigators live outside Coto de Caza.

“Even though it’s a closed community, it’s a large community, and you’re going to have all the problems that any community has, and keeping a fence around it isn’t going to keep it away,” says Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Larry Jones.

The Halloween night beatings, however, were a rarity on the police log.

Jones says crime statistics are not broken down specifically for Coto de Caza, but it retains one of the county’s lowest crime rates.

“They’ve had some thefts from the general store, and they’ve had a fair amount of juvenile vandalism,” Jones says.

In fact, he adds, “juvenile vandalism is their main problem.”

Over the years, youthful vandals have broken street-light bulbs, spray-painted buildings and signs with graffiti, knocked over golf course structures and driven four-wheel-drive vehicles onto the well-manicured greens.

UC Irvine urban sociologist Mark Baldassare, who conducted a Times Orange County Poll earlier this year on Coto de Caza and five other foothill communities, says that in order to help keep teens out of trouble, isolated communities such as Coto de Caza need to find more activities to involve young people.

“They’ve come up with a tremendous package of country clubs and golf courses and tennis courts, which mostly appeal to the adult population and leave teens out of the picture,” he says. “The plans that are put in place are in a sense a sign for trouble from the teen population.

“If we don’t find something worthwhile for teens to do, violence and gangs in today’s society are what seem to be the alternative all too often.”

What the Halloween night beatings really point out, Baldassare says, “is that no city or community is immune to the problems of gangs and teen violence, and when that occurs in one of the most affluent and prestigious communities in Orange County it tells us you can run, but you can’t hide from the problem of violence.”

Violent crime is so rare in Coto de Caza that the beatings thrust the local media spotlight onto this bucolic community known for its million-dollar estates, country club and miles of equestrian trails.

But the image of Coto de Caza as strictly an enclave of the wealthy whose spoiled children drive expensive cars and give no thought to the consequences of their actions is a gross exaggeration, many residents say.

“It’s got the capacity for newsworthiness because you can play off this ‘trouble in paradise’ theme. I don’t see that,” says resident Brian Gentner, senior counsel for Coto de Caza Ltd., the community’s developer. “There are a lot of middle class (people) here--like me, for instance. I don’t live in one of those mansions.”

Coto de Caza, which is Southern California’s lowest-density master-planned community, does indeed boast sprawling estates selling for up to $6 million.

A secluded valley surrounded by low hills, Coto de Caza was first opened in the late ‘60s as an equestrian and hunting resort. By the late ‘70s, about 200 custom homes dotted the pastoral landscape where deer drank in the stream that twisted along the valley floor and quail and doves perched in the 1,000-year-old oaks and massive sycamores that dotted the hillsides.

But since the first upscale tract houses were built in 1987, the 5,000-acre community of 4,000 residents has become a far more diverse mix of homes and income levels: The average tract house sells for about $400,000. The community’s two condominium complexes also offer homes for as little as $140,000, and townhouses are available in the $200,000 to $350,000 range.

As the Times poll indicated, the same rural isolation that their parents relish is, for some teens, one of the major drawbacks to living in Coto de Caza. “It would be nice if there was more stuff for kids to do, but the kids are used to it,” says Lindsay Martin, 13. “You can play out in the street. That’s just how it is, that’s how it’s always been.”

She says that some Coto de Caza young people may get in trouble because they are bored. “They’re just looking for something to do, and a lot of times it’s the wrong thing.”

Tim Vallez, 17, whose family moved to Coto de Caza from Mission Viejo five years ago, doesn’t think Coto de Caza teens are any more bored than those living in Mission Viejo.

“It’s just that they have the opportunity, I think, out here to do pretty much what they want. There’s really no law in here. They have the security guards, but they don’t do anything,” he says.

The Coto Valley Country Club has seen the worst of the teen-age vandalism.

Before Kent Fitch leased the facilities in June, he says, “this place used to just get trashed every weekend and two or three times during the week.”

Gates would be broken or bent, he says. The outdoor furniture--and even paint--was thrown into the pool. And kids would egg the buildings, which have been broken into and ransacked.

Over at the nearby Vic Braden Tennis College where teen-agers have used the deck as an after-hours hangout, the pro shop has been broken into and hit with graffiti and the Coke machine has been kicked in and robbed.

But both Fitch and Braden have seen vandalism virtually cease in recent months.

They attribute the drop to Fitch converting three tennis courts to roller hockey rinks and creating a roller hockey league in June. The league now numbers 230 boys and girls, ages 5 to 17, from Coto de Caza and the surrounding foothill communities.

The decrease in vandalism, Fitch believes, is simply a matter of changing the club’s approach to dealing with the community’s young people.

Before he took over the country club, he says, the response from management “was like, ‘kids are vandalizing, let’s make rules, let’s get the kids out,’ and there were signs all over: ‘No kids allowed without adults.’ So they kind of ran the kids out of everywhere.”

Doing that, he believes, only antagonized them.

“See, I’m a kid raised in the streets in Arizona, and I understand it. It’s like, ‘You don’t want us here, we’ll come back at night after it’s closed.’ I said, ‘Do you know what we need to do? We need to invite the kids in,’ and so I did.”

Fitch not only started the roller hockey league, but he welcomed kids back into the club by taking down the “No kids without adults” signs and adding adult supervision in the basketball courts, the pool and gym and fitness areas.

He also installed a video arcade and plans to initiate some type of supervised activity on Friday and Saturday nights for teen-agers.

“It’s a fun place to hang out,” Tyler Norman, 15, says of the country club. Kids used to hang out at the bus stop or at the general store and some still do, he says, “but mostly this is the fun place to go.”

“There’s got to be a place for them to go,” agrees Lindsay Martin, a member of the roller hockey league. “The kids really like it. It’s something for them to release all the tension they all have inside of them.”

Fitch believes a couple of things are helping in the reduction of vandalism.

“One thing they know if they’re caught messing around here, they’re kicked out of the (roller hockey) league.” It’s a private, for-profit league, “so I can kick anybody out I want. If they’re caught vandalizing or screwing up at Vic’s place or anywhere around the facilities they’re kicked out of the league.

“The other thing is we think they’re just so busy practicing they’re just burning off a lot of energy.” Instead of idle time, he says, “there’s something to do, someplace to go.”

Braden, who also has reactivated a junior tennis program, agrees.

“I think that most of the energy that we saw exhibited on any vandalism is now going on in the roller hockey court,” he says. “That’s what we like to see. That’s where it should be anyway.”

As Fitch sees it, that’s the best answer to teen-age problems in Coto de Caza.

“It’s not that they’re all bad kids who live in Coto de Caza. That’s not true,” he says. “They’re just kids like (anywhere else), but they don’t have enough to do, and they’ve kind of been excluded from too many things, and it does something to them.

“Now, there’s a few guys that just get in trouble no matter what. But if you get the majority heading in the right direction, I think they can kind of push those guys to do the right thing, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Although he’s had his share of problems with teen-agers, Braden says his “biggest disappointment” is not with the children, but with a few parents.

“When we’ve caught the children, some of the parents have almost been offended that we would even dream of accusing their child of something. But the majority of parents are still old-fashioned. If their kid gets in trouble, they want to know about it and want to take action.”

Braden, a former school psychologist, believes the number of Coto de Caza youngsters whose parents have not set limits on their children’s behavior is about the same as other communities.

Fitch agrees with Braden on the bottom line with teen-agers who get in trouble.

“It’s a lack of parental guidance,” he says. “I know where both my kids are right now, and I will always know where they are. They will check in, and they can’t go past this (certain) time. I’m not mean, but I know where they are, and I care where they are.”