Criminals in Dawna’s Neighborhood Better Watch Out

The Neighborhood Watch block captain who calls herself Boston Dawna usually heads out of her modest Venice apartment around 11 p.m., shoving a cellular phone into one bra cup, a handcuff key and some money into the other.

The handcuffs slide over the waistband in the back of her sweat pants. A club-size flashlight and a police scanner complete the accessories for her black sweat suit.

“I’m a walking Christmas tree half the time,” she jokes.

Each night, she drives her beat-up Oldsmobile up and down her corner of Venice, shines the flashlight into the dark alleys, notes license plates of cars that don’t belong, hides in bushes, and--quite often--catches crooks, usually burglars seeking easy pickings from parked cars. Without a gun, using the mere force of her brusque voice, she holds them until police arrive.

Her exploits during 2 1/2 years of nighttime patrols have become legendary in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division.

“She’s the most active Neighborhood Watch person I’ve ever heard of,” said LAPD Officer Brent Honore, senior lead officer for Boston Dawna’s neighborhood. “She takes the meaning of community-based policing to a whole new level.”

By her count, the 43-year-old woman has assisted in more than 100 felony arrests.

*

On one recent foggy Sunday evening patrol along Pacific Avenue, Dawna spotted a teen-age girl in a fedora, leaning against a telephone pole.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dawna called out as she pulled alongside the curb. Her Boston accent, undiluted despite two decades of California life, long ago led her to recast her given name “Donna” as “Dawna.” (She no longer uses her last name and, out of fear of retaliation, asks that it not be printed.)

The girl in the fedora shrugged. “Nothing,” she answered. A few more questions. A few more answers, slightly less vague.

With nothing obviously wrong, Dawna started to pull away; she had spotted another suspicious person a block away. But then she saw a man walking up to meet up the girl in the fedora. In a moment, she slammed the brakes, shot the car into reverse, zipped back along the curb and stormed out, wielding a flashlight and police scanner and identifying herself as a Neighborhood Watch captain.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dawna repeated, this time with anger.

Their answers didn’t jibe. Dawna cut them off.

“Shut up,” she ordered. “Sit down. Put your hands behind your head.”

The man and the girl shut up, sat down and put their hands behind their heads.

A quick investigation by Dawna revealed, half a block away, one car with its window forced open, another with a newly shattered rear window, both missing radios. In nearby bushes lay a screwdriver that could have been used to remove the radios.

On her cellular phone, Dawna called the police dispatcher. She left the screwdriver, untouched, for the police to pick up as evidence. Within half an hour, officers arrived, handcuffed the two suspects and took them away.

“Isn’t that incredible?” Dawna said later, bemused. “Criminals do what I tell them.”

Legally, there is no prohibition against verbally butting in as Dawna does; the suspect has no obligation to listen. When it comes to actually making a citizen’s arrest, California law sets this standard: A felony must have been committed, and you must have reasonable cause to believe the person you are restraining committed it.

Police discourage such actions, citing the danger.

“We don’t ask [citizens] to go out and hunt down criminals,” Honore said.

Dawna’s early morning drives started in 1993 as an escape from unpleasant run-ins with a neighbor. She stayed indoors much of the day and emerged only long after the neighbor had gone to bed.

But as she drove around, she started spotting people breaking into cars. “It’s not like I have to work real hard to catch criminals,” she said. “They’re real stupid.”

At the Pacific Division station, a mention of Boston Dawna usually elicits a smile. “The mystery,” says Honore, “is why she didn’t become a cop in the first place.”

Dawna insists she never had a career interest in law enforcement. By day, she’s a hairdresser.

*

“Hi, you’ve reached Boston Dawna. If I’m not here, that means I’m through with my haircuts and I’m chasing some criminal through the streets. Leave your name and number and when I get back from trying to catch the idiots, I’ll give you a call back. See ya.”

In Dawna’s kitchen hangs a chain of keys from neighbors who have asked her to look after their homes and pets. People regularly report trouble to her before the LAPD. Neighbors chip in for gas and the cellular phone Dawna uses to call the police. She asks a lot of them, too. She regularly scolds people for not shutting their garage doors (thus inviting thieves to come in and shop). She rails against those who complain about crime but are unwilling to report it or testify against suspects. (She says she testifies in court an average of three times a week.) When Dawna calls a Neighborhood Watch meeting, usually 70 to 80 people show up, police say.

With her neighbors, Dawna last summer threw a party for the Pacific Division officers.

“I couldn’t do what I do if it weren’t for them,” she said. So heartfelt is this sentiment that she passes out photocopies of a poem she wrote about police. An excerpt:

Outnumbered by gangsters,

Outarmed by guns,

Without ethics or morals,

Defense attorneys are bums.

So a word to all lawyers:

Defend your client if you must.

It rips apart our city,

Never mind the trust.

The blame is misplaced,

Your guilty client should fall

Because when YOU need a cop,

Who will YOU call?

One of the lessons Dawna has learned is that you can’t catch them all. On that foggy Sunday evening, neither she nor the police officers found the missing stereos. Without the evidence, no link could be formed between the crime and the suspects. Both the man and the girl were released.

But even that was partial victory.

“You can bet your life they won’t be coming back into my neighborhood,” Boston Dawna said.

‘It’s not like I have to work real hard to catch criminals. They’re real stupid.’