Police to Take Residence in Santa Ana Neighborhood

Residents of Minnie Street, infamous for drug dealing and crowded, tightly packed rows of apartment buildings, are about to get two unusual neighbors: a pair of cops who drive a golf cart.

A police substation will open by Aug. 1 in one of the apartments in the 1000 block, the first in the city and one of few in Orange County.

“We want to make people feel better about living there, reduce the perception that it’s a bad neighborhood, and get police closer to the population,” Police Lt. Charles Magdalena said.

About 12,000 people live in the 4 1/2-block area. Already this year, two slayings have occurred there and 161 calls have been placed to police about drugs.

“It’s a very, very busy part of the city,” Magdalena said.

This week, the city received a $100,000 grant from the state Office of Criminal Justice Planning for the substation. The money will pay for one officer’s salary and expenses, and the city will contribute the other officer.

The two officers will patrol the densely populated area with bicycles and a golf cart, which is “small, cheap and quiet,” Magdalena said.

The substation will be staffed 40 hours a week, including at least one weekend day. The apartment has been donated by the owner, but police will pay utility bills.

One recent weekday, residents who were admitted gang members crowded around police officers and showed off their tattoos. They said the police presence would not bother them, but one man told police, “You got a lot of work to do.”

Substations typically are located in vacant storefronts or, as in the case of Santa Ana’s five substations, are full-service operations that include jails and meeting rooms.

Substations are part of community policing, a growing trend in law enforcement throughout the country that aims to strengthen ties between police and residents by having the two mix on a daily basis.

In some cities, officials credit community policing for decreases in burglaries. Fort Worth, Tex., attributes a 51% drop in burglaries to the tack.

Garden Grove has four apartment substations, the first of which opened 2 1/2 years ago, Officer Richard Morales said.

Minnie Street resident Tanya Silva, who has two children, said it will be harder for the drug dealers to ply their trade with police officers nearby.

Silva, 19, works out of a milk truck, which sells everything from Alka Seltzer to cinnamon sticks and remains parked on Minnie Street daily. She said she sometimes extends credit to the drug dealers--the ones she knows will pay her back--and that they cause her few problems.

“Maybe it’s because we’ve been here so much, and they know us,” she said.

It is the same thing police hope they can say someday.