Crossing the Law

Nothing personal, said the guy who nearly flattened me with his truck.

“I never saw you,” Angel Santiago explained sheepishly as he fished through his wallet for his driver’s license Wednesday in Glendale.

Santiago had breezed past me as I walked across Brand Boulevard in a crosswalk. Unfortunately for Santiago, police had seen him. Seven motorcycle officers, in fact.

The police were gathered at Garfield Avenue for a two-hour crackdown on motorists who do not stop for pedestrians trying to cross the busy four-lane boulevard.

Each time a plainclothes police decoy stepped into the intersection’s crosswalk, it seemed as though at least one car would zoom through the pedestrian zone without stopping. Moments later, one of the officers would be in pursuit.

I was crossing the street to watch an eighth traffic officer issue a ticket to the driver of a new sport-utility vehicle who failed to stop for the decoy when Santiago didn’t stop for me.

The sport-utility driver would have to wait. First, I wanted to meet Santiago.

“You didn’t see me in the street?” I asked as Officer Jon Harrison stepped away from Santiago’s company truck to finish scribbling out a $103 traffic ticket.

I told him about the police crackdown.

“This isn’t fair,” responded Santiago, 19, a television technician from Sunland.

“The police shouldn’t be waiting around for people to make mistakes. Man, I hope the company pays for the ticket. I didn’t see you walking.”

Passenger Christian Reyes, 20, of Burbank, had two pieces of bad news for Santiago.

“No, the company doesn’t pay,” said Reyes, also a technician. “You do.”

Turning to me, Reyes added: “I saw you. You were in the middle of the street when we went by.”

A hundred yards away, the driver of the sport-utility vehicle was arguing with Officer Jay Katska over the failure-to-yield-to-a-pedestrian citation Katska had just issued.

“Nobody was walking. There was no stoplight here. This is unfair,” said Arutyun Karabadzhakyan, 46, of Hollywood.

Karabadzhakyan was looking for witnesses. He took down my name and asked about a camera crew across the street filming the crackdown. “I’ll fight this ticket,” Karabadzhakyan vowed.

Glendale Police Sgt. Lewie Guay was the decoy in the crosswalk when Karabadzhakyan passed by. He said Wednesday’s unusual street-walker sting was plenty fair.

“It’s a dangerous situation. We’ve had a lady killed at this very intersection,” Guay said. “Of the 12 traffic fatalities we had last year, eight involved people in crosswalks.”

Guay said he got the idea for the sting operation a year and a half ago when he stopped a jaywalker starting to cross the boulevard just south of Garfield. To his horror, the woman was almost struck by a car after he ordered her to go to the Garfield crosswalk to cross legally.

“I said, ‘There’s something wrong here,’ ” Guay recounted.

As part of the crosswalk crackdown, police have handed out 5,000 children’s “slap bracelets” to local elementary pupils. They are stamped with the reminder “Look Before You Cross,” and they clamp on youngsters’ wrists when they are slapped in place.

Officer John Gilkerson said older Glendale students have competed in a crosswalk safety poster contest that offered winners $2,000 in prize money, plus the creation of donated local billboards with the top artwork displayed.

Filmmakers Alan Brandstater and Mark Enzenauer donated about $10,000 in services to produce safety videos that air on Glendale cable television.

Thirty-seven crosswalk violation citations were issued by the eight motorcycle officers Wednesday, along with a speeding ticket that went to the driver who happened to pick the Garfield intersection to loudly floor the accelerator of his sleek black sports car.

Onlookers and workers at nearby businesses cheered as two motorcycle officers roared off after the sports car.

“I love what they’re doing,” said Tavo Martinelli, an auto salesman who works at the corner. “You try crossing this street. You end up running.”

I know.