Anti-Crime Fair Draws Little Notice at CSUN : Public safety: Spectators are lacking at an event spotlighting efforts by the community and authorities to prevent lawbreaking and assist victims.

The safest place in the Valley Saturday was the football field at Cal State University Northridge, where police in uniform outnumbered citizens by a margin beyond calculation.

An all-day Community Crime Prevention and Legal Rights Fair brought out law enforcement’s finest, from a couple of Los Angeles Police Department officers on horseback to a traffic unit with a crumpled car in tow.

The only thing missing was the public. As members of 28 police units and citizen support teams waited in booths to hand out literature and explain their special functions, only a handful of spectators dribbled by.

“This is a great program. Unfortunately, the citizens forgot to show up,” said Mitch Robbins of the Van Nuys Division’s major assault crimes unit.

Sponsored by the Valley Community Legal Foundation, a group of lawyers and judges concerned about crime, the event was intended to spotlight police and community efforts to prevent crime and assist its victims.

Police services ranged from the LAPD’s domestic abuse response teams--whose officers compile evidence and offer victims assistance such as vouchers for lodging and for children’s clothes--to the bomb squad and the police band.

Booths were set up by a number of victim-assistance groups, from the Haven Hills shelter for battered women to a homicide grief support group at Kaiser Permanente Hospital.

Several groups recruited citizens to get involved in fighting crime.

Acknowledging that violent crime has recently been reported to be on a downswing, Pam Allison, president of Mad About Rising Crime, said that Valley communities still face a rising rate of the day-to-day crime that destroys neighborhoods.

“It’s time for the community to help,” Allison said. “The police can’t do it alone. So community groups are helping take back their own streets.”

MARC, named for a 16-year-old Granada Hills boy who was shot at a party by someone who wanted his beeper, distributes information programs, removes graffiti and runs family support groups.

Other organizations sought volunteers to join police on surveillance and to record graffiti with Polaroid cameras.

“This task force goes after felony prosecution by documenting the damage,” said volunteer Cliff Reston of the Community Tagger Task Force.

Reston said the group has been responsible for 20 felony convictions of juveniles and four convictions of adults.

“It’s definitely put a chill on tagging in the Valley.”

Dismissing a suggestion that the lackluster attendance may indicate waning public interest in crime, organizers said they intend to do the fair again next year, only better.

“The major issue is, I think, a lot of people didn’t know,” said Capt. Vance Proctor, commander of the LAPD’s Devonshire Division. “We’ll learn some things. Obviously, foremost is the LAPD and Valley Community Legal Foundation need to do better marketing.”