City to Post Extra Security at Projects

Some $2.2 million will be diverted from city street maintenance to extra security at public housing projects, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn announced Tuesday.

The federal funds will pay for 40,000 hours of police overtime, Hahn said.

The announcement came at a news conference Thursday in the Nickerson Gardens public housing project in Watts, near where two residents, Annette Anderson, 52, and George Brooks, 34, were killed in a double homicide earlier this week. Two women also were wounded in the attack.

Hahn appeared with Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and Elenore Williams, the housing authority board’s newly elected chairwoman.

The extra money for police comes from an annual cash payment the federal government makes to local governments as a substitute for property taxes.

There are 60 low-income housing developments in Los Angeles. The money will be directed to those with the most serious crime problems, said Yusef K. Robb, the mayor’s spokesman. These include Nickerson Gardens, Jordan Downs and Imperial Courts in Watts, and the Pico and Aliso projects east of downtown Los Angeles.

The recent homicides were the first in Nickerson Gardens in six months. Since 2002, police said, crime in the Watts housing developments has been diminishing. Violent crime in police reporting districts that include the three largest housing developments fell 32% in 2003, compared with the previous year.

Several people said officials had not done enough to improve the often-prickly relations between police and local residents.

They called for more money to be spent on social programs instead. “You are not liberators, you are an occupying force,” said Quentin Drew of the Watts Neighborhood Council.

“We can’t talk about fire prevention,” the mayor responded, “when the fires are raging.”