Anti-Crime Activists Undeterred by Slaying

As police hunted Saturday for the killer of Neighborhood Watch volunteer Pedro Banegas, community activists worried that the ambush slaying would scare residents away from a popular program credited with reducing crime.

Community leaders said it should have no effect, pointing out that Banegas regularly engaged in aggressive, face-to-face confrontations with criminals in his Northridge neighborhood. Those are methods volunteers are specifically taught to avoid.

“You have to keep in mind this individual was a trained, paid security guard,” said Harry Coleman, chairman of a Neighborhood Watch group in North Hills. Besides serving as a Neighborhood Watch block captain, Banegas worked as a security guard at the 466-unit Park Parthenia Apartments, in what has historically been one of the most troubled neighborhoods in the Valley.

“He put his life on the line,” Coleman said. “He chose to do so.”

Banegas was stalked and shot Thursday night, as he and his wife left a night school English class at Reseda High School. Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang, followed by four or five more shots as the gunman chased Banegas.

Banegas, a Honduran immigrant and father of two, was found on the ground gasping for breath. He was transported to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he died of several gunshot wounds.

By late Saturday, police had not made any arrests. They were looking for a man described as a Latino, 26 or 27 years old, who was wearing dark pants, gloves and a light-colored shirt at the time of the shooting.

Banegas, 42, worked hard to rid the Parthenia Park Apartments of gangs and drugs. He won respect and made many friends, his colleagues said. The affection most residents felt toward him was shown by flyers posted around the complex after his death. They contained his picture and the memorial “in dear memory of Pedro Banegas.”

But his hard-nosed approach to gang members where he worked also earned enemies. Police said he received several “second- and third-hand threats to his life.” Just days before his death, Banegas filed a police report alleging he had been assaulted by a vandal.

Banegas didn’t die “because he was a block captain,” said Sally Barnes, a senior lead officer with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division, who worked closely with Banegas the past two years. He was killed, she said, “in the course of his work as a security guard.”

Although there were few similarities, the Banegas killing recalled the slaying two years earlier of another community volunteer, Keith Brown. The husband of a Winnetka block captain, Brown was shot and killed after he intervened in an argument between two neighbors. His killer, Scott James Craft, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Following that incident, some wondered whether too much was expected of citizen volunteers and whether some had become too aggressive in trying to help the police.

While Banegas was aggressive, he was far from a typical volunteer crime-fighter.

North Hollywood block captain Sandy Munz said the LAPD urges its volunteers to observe safety first. “A block captain is strictly out there to be an extra set of eyes and ears for the officers,” she said.

More than 4,000 block captains serve in the LAPD’s five Valley divisions: Van Nuys, Foothill, North Hollywood, Devonshire and West Valley. Each captain supervises four or five dozen neighbors in crime surveillance.

“I hope that no one becomes intimidated by this,” Barnes said. “That would mean the bad guys would win. We can’t let all his work go in vain.”

“Will this [killing] deter me or other Neighborhood Watch persons? Hell no,” Coleman said. “I will fight even harder to rid our community of these kind of individuals.”