Koreatown Volunteer Patrols Help Cut Crime

Jay Rhee, a 38-year-old Koreatown resident, reluctantly recalls April 30, 1992: the first desperate day he ever handled and fired a gun as he defended himself from looters who shot at him and the electronics store he worked at.

Things are different now.

The soft-spoken, bearded man and about 20 other residents and business owners help protect the rebuilt community quietly, unarmed and with the cooperation of the police.

Twice a week for the past three years, the Special Problem Area Response Team, which Rhee coordinates, has patrolled crime-ridden spots of the Mid-Wilshire area, focusing on Koreatown. They use their own vehicles and ham radios, passing on tips to on-duty Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Volunteer patrol efforts like SPART and its counterpart in Koreatown’s northeastern regions, the Korean-American Watch Team, have made significant reductions in area crime, police say. Senior Lead Officer Heebae Cho, the LAPD Wilshire Division’s liaison with SPART, said he has seen a sharp drop in the volunteer patrol’s targeted regions, particularly in burglaries, drug dealing, prostitution and graffiti.

At least one Koreatown community group conducts private armed patrols. LAPD spokesman Jason Lee said the department does not condone such practices.

Partnerships between unarmed citizen patrols and the LAPD have existed since at least the early 1980s. Today, groups in many parts of the department’s jurisdiction--from Little Tokyo to Beverly-Fairfax to Van Nuys--have foot or vehicle citizen patrols.

Charles Park, a SPART newcomer, said it was rewarding to see the effects of citizen surveillance.

“Because people don’t notice us in our own cars, people don’t avoid us. It’s almost like being undercover,” Park said. “One night, we saw some suspicious youths in gang attire, sitting in a car. We radioed in the plates, and they discovered the car had been stolen three days earlier. The kids never knew what hit them: Out of the blue came all of these police cars, and they were arrested.”

On a recent weekday night, Rhee was driving down Olympic Boulevard in Koreatown on his patrol rounds, looking for signs of trouble. The only sound to be heard on the desolate stretch of the street was the static of his ham radio.

He passed the Olympian Mart, a warehouse-like discount store that was the site of a photo that symbolized Koreatown as a war zone during the Los Angeles riots. Four and one-half years after the riots, that image--Korean American merchants standing atop the store’s roof, protecting it with automatic rifles--is indelible to many.

Rounding the corner, Rhee’s Toyota Camry crept at 15 mph on a dimly lit side street. Scratching his whiskers in concentration, he scanned for indications of drug deals, car thefts or gang activity. Throughout the night, a steady stream of suspicious activities were being reported in Korean over SPART’s ham radio frequency. Officer Cho, whose patrol car is equipped with a ham radio, checks out the problems and makes any necessary arrests.

At Harvard Boulevard and 11th Street, Rhee lingered at a corner that used to be infested with crack dealers. Since SPART helped make a couple of arrests in the area, the dealers have cleared out, he said. A few blocks away, Rhee pointed out what SPART members believed was a crack house.

In his back seat, he carries binoculars and sometimes a camera, hoping to catch a drug deal in the making. On occasion, his court testimony has been used in criminal prosecutions.

“My riot experience changed everything,” said Rhee, who now works as a partner in a downtown textile business. “It left me feeling empty. After that, I just felt like I had to do something worthwhile. I’m not a savior or a superman. I just want to do something.”

The rules that police have established for the volunteers are simple: They do not carry arms at any time, though a few carry Mace for self-defense. They do not exit their vehicles and are told to leave any dangerous situations. When real trouble arises, the patrol officers take over. Neither of Koreatown’s citizen patrol groups have had any on-duty injuries.

On the other side of Koreatown, Jung Chaing leads the Korean-American Watch Team, which works with the LAPD’s Rampart Division. A South Bay resident who does sculpting and bronze work out of a downtown studio, Chaing neither lives nor works in Koreatown. But when fellow ham radio enthusiasts began gathering there five years ago, he joined them to pursue his hobby. That evolved into an informal ham patrol, which in turn became the Korean-American Watch Team.

“We didn’t work with the police. We used to make citizen’s arrests, and face suspects armed with only our radios,” he said. “Now we work with the police and it’s much safer. Before, it was dangerous. No, not just that; it was . . .”--he stopped, searching for the right word--”stupid.”

The LAPD’s push for community-based policing brought Senior Lead Officer Song Suh to the Korean-American Watch Team. Suh, Chaing and others helped forge the current partnership, slightly over a year old.

Like Rhee, he has dedicated himself to night patrols, testifying in court and organizing volunteers. Ask him why and he tells you about the cleaning lady who walks home on a darkened business-district street every night.

“We try to come by and watch just to make sure she gets home safely,” he said as he drove his Chevrolet 4x4 down the street one evening. “We also carry jumper cables, in case anyone’s battery dies at night. Any kind of problem, we help.”