Good Neighbor Policy : Oxnard: Police are now more supportive of resident patrols that watch out for lawbreakers and report them to authorities. Crime is down in the areas where the program is in operation.

Twelve burglaries in two weeks at Oxnard’s Redwood neighborhood, and James Carlyle was on the prowl.

Cruising through a rubbish-strewn alley, he spotted a shady-looking van with its lights off and motor running.

As Carlyle drew nearer and tried to read the license plate, the van sped off. Carlyle floored his gas pedal and gave chase through the narrow alley.

Within seconds, he reached 45 m.p.h. But the van, still with its lights off, barreled through the garbage at about 70 m.p.h. and got away.

“I realized he was going way too fast,” said Carlyle, who backed off for fear of crashing. “I still did what I was there to do.”

The scene was reminiscent of a “Kojak” episode, but Carlyle is no detective. He is not even a cop.

Carlyle is a member of Oxnard’s Neighborhood Watch program, a highly effective and extremely popular residents group that has helped police uproot vandals, robbers and gangbangers from the city’s streets.

Armed only with spotlights, cameras, police scanners and cellular phones, the men and women who volunteer their nights to the program are the top reason that Oxnard no longer has Ventura County’s highest crime rate, said Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

“We now have more than a thousand additional eyes and ears,” Hurtt said. “When they see something, they call us. People know that it’s not just the black-and-whites or the undercover cars they have to worry about anymore--it’s any car out there.”

He said criminals now “feel that their chance of being apprehended has increased.”

In 2 1/2 years, the movement has spread to 27 of the city’s 40 neighborhoods and now involves about 1,000 residents.

In that time, Oxnard’s crime rate has fallen 18% throughout the city--and by up to 93% in the participating communities, police said.

“The old lady that peeps out through the blinds--that’s good,” said Randy Elliott, head of the Carriage Square Neighborhood Watch. “We want to let the bad guys know that if you’re doing something in our neighborhood, someone is going to see you.”

The birth of Oxnard’s first Neighborhood Watch program in 1990 has become part of city lore.

John Branthoover, a resident of the Rio Lindo neighborhood in northeast Oxnard, was fed up with a tagger who was repeatedly spray-painting a wall near his home.

“I got sick and tired, and I told my wife that I was going to get the guy who was doing it,” Branthoover recalled. “There were some bushes near the wall that was getting hit, and I went over and hid in the bushes.”

Suddenly, Branthoover said he felt a rustling in the bushes and realized there was a person near him. It was a neighbor who was tired of the tagger and had also decided to take matters into his own hands.

“I asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ and he asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Branthoover said. “We started the Neighborhood Watch right after that.”

The two men soon discovered two women in another part of the neighborhood who had been spending their nights trying to catch a different tagger, and the movement grew. Crime in Rio Lindo is down about 90% since the advent of the resident patrols, police said.

Initially, however, the Oxnard Police Department did not like the concept of a residents patrol, Branthoover said. It was anything but supportive, he said.

“We’d be pulled over with red lights--’What are you doing out this late?’ My son was harassed. We were not appreciated.”

Police said they were worried that residents would act like vigilantes and place themselves in danger, making the officers’ job even more difficult.

Detective Steve Vendt, who heads Oxnard’s fight against graffiti, formerly worked in the Rio Lindo area. He said he was originally against the citizen patrols but has become their biggest supporter.

“They got credibility,” Vendt said of the Rio Lindo group. “They weren’t crying wolf. They had a level of professionalism that was impressive. It got to the point where if Rio Lindo called, I knew it was something.”

The arrival of Hurtt about 2 1/2 years ago was the beginning of a partnership between residents and cops, Neighborhood Watch members say.

When Hurtt heard about the neighborhood patrol in Rio Lindo, he asked if he could tag along for a night. Impressed, he began to encourage other neighborhoods to begin groups, and the patrols began sprouting up throughout Oxnard.

“I think it’s important to get everyone involved in the crime-fighting efforts and in their community,” Hurtt said, adding that the Neighborhood Watch “is more satisfying to them than what we can offer in the criminal-justice system.”

The Neighborhood Watch program is run by Oxnard in conjunction with the city’s neighborhood council program and is independent from the police. But the Police Department helps organize the members and trains them to spot signs of crime.

Police have set up a dispatcher to take calls from Neighborhood Watch members, and Cellular One donated a voice mail system and numerous portable phones to help residents report unlawful acts.

Most important, police have begun instructing the groups on safety, ensuring that residents understand they have no police authority and need to avoid violent criminals for their own good.

The patrols have welcomed police recommendations. Indeed, Carlyle’s decision to chase the dark van through the alley was decried by several watch members, who said his judgment was poor.

Although there have been a handful of incidents in which Neighborhood Watch members have been assaulted and their cars sideswiped, most residents have not encountered problems on the patrols, Vendt said.

“Safety comes first,” said Howard Fox, a podiatrist who heads the Sea Air Neighborhood Watch. “While quite a few of us are trained in the martial arts, our philosophy is not to have a direct confrontation with anyone.”

Fox, a native of the South Bronx, moved to Oxnard 15 years ago, charmed by the city’s semirural feel and its proximity to the beach. He said he became upset several years ago when he saw crime rising and the streets becoming lawless.

“It’s one city; it’s really one world,” said the 40-year-old Fox. “We have to help each other, take care of our neighbors. We live in a small Earth, and we can’t get territorial.”

Fox organized the Sea Air Neighborhood Watch two years ago. The group now patrols the area every day, cruising the streets in search of taggers and robbers and painting over graffiti.

He said he has witnessed people breaking into homes, spray-painting walls, fighting and selling drugs.

One night, Fox said, a man approached him along the street and said, “Are you the police? I’m going to kill my brother-in-law.”

Fox quickly called officers, who stepped in, calmed the man and got him some counseling. He was apparently enraged because his sister’s husband was beating her.

The neighborhood has seen a 93% decrease in crime since the patrols began, police said.

“We drove the bad guys out,” Fox said proudly. “They don’t do it in our neighborhood now. Bad guys tend to be cowards, and they don’t hang around areas where they have to face citizens.”

The streets of Oxnard can be dangerous, said Anita Simmons, but that does not stop the 63-year-old from patrolling the Carriage Square neighborhood at night.

“If I see a gang I’m not going to approach them,” said Simmons, who began patrolling after her husband died 1 1/2 years ago. “I’m not stupid. If I see something out there, I’ll back out.

Some Neighborhood Watch leaders say that in some ways the program has worked too well too quickly. Because crime in some neighborhoods has fallen so sharply, patrolling the areas has become increasingly boring, and some residents have begun bowing out.

“You become a victim of your own success,” said Elliott, who has had problems finding people to patrol in his Carriage Square neighborhood in northwest Oxnard. “It’s usually two hours of nothing out there.”

Nevertheless, enthusiasm for the program is still growing in some quarters.

On April 29, Oxnard’s Neighborhood Watch program was honored by the Ventura County Peace Officers Assn. for its impact on crime.

And many residents still enjoy their time on the street.

Leonard Jordan moved into the Tierra Vista neighborhood in southeast Oxnard about a year ago and quickly joined its Neighborhood Watch.

The 55-year-old has made a citizen’s arrest of a graffiti vandal, taken pictures of trademark tags to help police, and once called officers about a gang gathering that led to the arrest of a half-dozen juveniles for old and new violations.

When a patroller in his neighborhood was taunted, stared down and followed by a group of young men, he and some other residents tracked the men down and followed them until police arrived.

“The people who do this don’t do it because they have been wronged,” Jordan said. “They do it because they believe this place belongs to us. This is our neighborhood.”