In Hollenbeck, Crime Statistics Aren’t Needed

Standing in the doorway of her Mexican restaurant along 1st Street in Boyle Heights on Monday, Genoveva Mendoza didn’t need any crime statistics to tell her life was getting better in her corner of America.

“I’ve been here the last 18 years, and I’ve never before seen it like this,” said Mendoza, 52. “The police come by a lot and make the gang members leave--they’ve really tried to clean up the street.

Hopefully it will stay this way.”

Nationally, serious crime was down 7% last year. In Los Angeles, it decreased even more--11.6%. And in the city of L.A., nowhere has the drop in murders, rapes and other violent crimes been more dramatic than on the proud but tough streets patrolled by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Division.

While other divisions have seen drops in violent crime ranging from 6% to 25% since 1994, the East Los Angeles communities of Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Lincoln Heights policed by Hollenbeck officers have experienced a decrease of about 30%, according to newly released 1996 crime statistics.

“It’s very hard to pinpoint why crime goes down so dramatically,” said Capt. Bruce Hagerty, who heads the division of 260 officers. “There’s no one answer. You have to look at everything. We try to take a holistic approach to crime prevention and solutions.”

Across the nation, the drop in crime is being linked to an array of social and economic factors--primarily an aging, less crime-prone population--as well as to a variety of police tactics and strategies.

In the case of Hollenbeck, officers and criminologists point to curfew crackdowns, bulletproof street lamps and community policing, as well as a Mexican Mafia-ordered gang cease-fire and a stabilization of the drug trade.

Many East Los Angeles residents said Monday that they have walked around their neighborhoods with more ease in recent months, aware of the absence of gunfire that used to ricochet through the early morning.

“I feel a lot better now because there’s more police vigilance,” said Veronica Delgadillo, 20, as she pushed her baby down 1st Street in Boyle Heights. “I feel I can go outside with the baby and walk around during the day. There used to be many cholos, many drug dealers--there’s hardly any now.”

The reduction in violent crimes in Hollenbeck outpaces current local and national trends.

Despite the improvements, the Hollenbeck division still struggles to fight crime, looking after some of the toughest turf in the city. The 15-square-mile area is home to more than 50 gangs with a total membership of 9,000.

Hagerty said his division has used a multifaceted approach to battle crime in ways both big and small. With the help of computers, patrol officers “map out problem areas” that have experienced more than 10 crimes during a two-week period and designate those areas for intensive police enforcement.

“It’s a very targeted approach. We’ve defused some of the gangs by arresting some of the gang leaders,” he said.

Hollenbeck officers also have pressed enforcement of curfews, snatching up youths who linger on sidewalks late at night.

“This way, we take would-be crime victims and would-be suspects off the streets before anything happens,” Hagerty said.

Those youths are issued citations, have their parents called to pick them up and are enrolled in local youth development programs, such as the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club. Their parents can either pay hefty fines or enroll in parenting classes that teach them how to deal with problem children.

“This [decrease in crime] was done by the hard work of a lot of people in the department and the community,” said Capt. Thomas Moselle, also of Hollenbeck. “A lot of people thought community policing was soft on crime, but this shows that it can work.”

Business leaders and residents have joined the police in Hollenbeck, painting out graffiti, reporting crimes and letting officers use their properties to spy on gang and drug activity.

Some officers and criminologists, however, say an increase in crime is inevitable. They credit the dip to the aging of the huge baby boomer generation and a dearth of young people, who traditionally commit most crimes.

“The bottom line is that the age of juveniles in their crime-prone years is significantly down,” said LAPD Deputy Chief John White. “By the turn of the century, we are going to have an increase in the juvenile or young people rate and crime is going to go up again. That’s the most significant factor.”

Steve Herbert, a professor of criminal justice at Indiana University who has researched policing at the LAPD, agreed.

“I’m reluctant to jump on the bandwagon and say that it’s because of police tactics,” he said, noting that a new generation of criminals may be on the horizon. “One is reluctant to predict, but there is reason to be fearful.”

Herbert added that the drug trade in Southern California has stabilized and become somewhat less violent than it was in the mid- and late 1980s.

One factor that has contributed to the 40% decrease in murders in the Hollenbeck area since 1994 has been a gang truce declared by the Mexican Mafia, which ordered Latino gangs to halt indiscriminate gunfire.

“That has certainly been a factor,” Hagerty said.

Despite the successes, Hagerty said, his division has a long way to go before crime can be considered under control.

“A lot more needs to be done,” he said.

Although passersby on Boyle Heights’ busy and often gritty 1st Street business district speak of the area’s relative peace, many residents can still testify to violent shootings and assaults near their homes.

One longtime resident, Vicente Lambardo, said the streets are much safer today than they were a few years ago, but nothing like the atmosphere when he first moved to the Eastside decades ago.

“It was very peaceful then, you could walk down the street in the middle of the night and be fine,” he said. “Now you can’t go out [at night], and when you do, you have to look around to make sure no one is going to come up and shoot you.”

Times staff writer Jocelyn Stewart contributed to this report.

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Crime Drop Apparent in L.A. County

Here is a look at the change in Los Angeles County cities’ FBI crime index from 1995 to 1996. The index is the sum of murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies/thefts and auto thefts reported to police.

City: % change

Burbank: -1.7%

Downey: -0.1%

El Monte: -11.0%

Glendale: -12.5%

Inglewood: -8.4%

Lancaster: -5.1%

Long Beach: -14.2%

Los Angeles: -11.6%

Norwalk: -8.9%

Palmdale: +3.4%

Pasadena: -21.0%

Pomona: -8.0%

Santa Clarita: -17.2%