Sunday Safety Update 06-28-2015 to 07-04-2015

Most of the illegal fireworks on the 4th of July came from the circled area. The worst area was 15th and Gaviota where residents from three separate buildings with parties of more than twenty each were setting them off in the middle of the street. The same problem, though to a slightly lesser degree, existed on Rose and Gardenia. Mayor Garcia is asking for ideas on how to curb this trend on his Facebook Page.

Right now an informal poll shows most MacArthur Park/ Long Beach residents, 83% are not happy with the response to the illegal fireworks.

There was also another homicide. That was the stabbing of a homeless man at 5:38am at Dawson. Here is the news story about that stabbing:

A man believed to be homeless was found stabbed to death early Saturday morning in Long Beach’s Cambodia Town neighborhood, a police spokeswoman said. Streets near the crime scene in the 1200 block of Dawson, just south of Anaheim Street, were closed for several hours as police collected evidence from an area that spanned more than three blocks.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. His body was taken by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office for an autopsy. Coroner’s personnel will be in charge of identifying the man. The investigation is ongoing. The stabbing comes after a recent spate of shootings and violent crime in Long Beach over the last five weeks. In June, five murders took place, the highest for that month in at least five years.

There will be a meeting to address the increased violence this coming Tuesday. The meeting will be held Tuesday night, July 7, 2015 at 6:00 PM. The location of the meeting is: Temple Baptist Church, 2825 E. 10th Street, Long Beach, California 90804. You can see a full post about that meeting by following this link. While I encourage everyone in all neighborhoods to attend, I will also attend that meeting and pass on whatever is discussed.

You will also notice a string of breaking and entering just north of the Rose Park Neighborhood. This is interesting because last week, there was a similar trend just to the south of that line heading south west. Be aware that may change direction any time and end up in any bordering neighborhood including the Rose Park, the AOC7 or MacArthur Park.

Also notice the car thefts around Rotary Centennial Park. If you pull up a map that goes further back you can see how car thefts have been following a circular pattern around that park at Stanton and PCH. You can also see several clear indications that car theft is heading SW through the Zaferia Neighborhood, towards ours. Again, here is the post on preventing car theft to prevent this from happening to you.

Let me end with a positive note, despite that incident on Dawson, the map of MacArthur Park for this week is nearly crime free. In addition to that, very little property damage, except the fireworks we will all be sweeping up, was done. There was almost no tagging and very little dumped trash. So that huge cloud, comes with a small silver lining, and I know of a lot of people working very hard to ensure all of central Long Beach finds a few more.