Screams in Night Demanded Response : As neighbors ignored the sound, a woman was murdered; police say ‘Pick up the phone’

One often hears that San Fernando Valley residents put violent crime at the top of their collective worry lists. That’s worth noting, since serious crimes have been on the decline in our environs, and since one is twice as likely to be killed here by a car accident than by a murderer.

But these worries apparently don’t always translate into immediate action. Given these attitudes and concerns, one would expect more of a tripwire mentality in which folks are on the telephone to the police at the slightest suspicion of a problem. Too bad that isn’t always the case. It is always better to call the police and then be proved wrong later, than not to call and find out later that something awful has occurred.

According to published reports, a 74-year-old Porter Ranch woman began screaming for help about 2 a.m. May 10 when she was attacked in her condominium by her eventual murderer. No one in the 195-unit complex responded, though her cries were apparently heard. It was not until three hours later, and more screaming, that police were called. They arrived at 5:30 a.m. and found the woman’s body beneath the balcony of her unit.

Little of this makes sense to us. A person in a nearby unit said that he heard screams at 2 a.m., but believed he was hearing a domestic dispute. Good grief. Did that make it something to be dismissed or ignored?! The answer should have been “no.”

We’ve been in touch with about 22 local police departments, and they generally say the same thing: Pick up the phone and call us, immediately, when you hear screaming.

The police will not hold it against you if it turns out that some neighbor is watching midnight reruns of “Law and Order” with the volume turned up too loud. Some departments go even further by suggesting that you get outside to try to get a better sense of where the screaming may have originated.

The response made no sense because residents in this complex had already been aware, and had complained at least among themselves, about loud noises late at night in vacant units near the victim’s apartment. That sounds to us like reason to be on the alert. Also, this was not some strife-torn, crime-ridden community where the residents have been cowed into a mentality of silence. This was Porter Ranch, and a so-called “exclusive” condominium complex. It is exactly the kind of place in which residents ought to feel most confident about contacting the police.

But this is a message for every neighbor, and every neighborhood, regardless of relative poverty or affluence. If it were your wife or husband or mother or father or grandparent or son or daughter screaming for help in the night, what would you want the neighbors to do?