Stand Against Violence Tonight at Rosa Park's Park

STAND AGAINST VIOLENCE IN LONG BEACH TONIGHT 4.21.16

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The community surrounding 17th street and Alamitos Avenue are prepared to demonstrated a rapid response to the latest occurrence of violence in that area.

On Monday night, four young men were the victims of violence. Three of the victims are still in serious conditions and one young nineteen year old died. Young Delhan Jackson should be planning his next birthday or his future. Instead, his young son will have to adjust to life without his father and another mother is left to collect the fragments of her unfulfilled expectations of who her son could have grown up to become.

Enough Is Enough!

How many young men and women nationwide will have to be eulogize as a result of the senseless violence cities around the United States are experiencing. In Long Beach, California, communities are galvanizing themselves to launch a sustainable strategy to interrupt end the violence.

Sherrell Weatherton, mother of Delhaun stated; “We want black lives to matter to black lives. Anyone can pick up a gun but it takes heart to do the right thing.

On Thursday evening, April 21st 2016, Sherrell, her family, community stakeholders, Clergy and City official will meet at Rosa Parks Park to challenge the neighbor and community to help turn the tides of violence against each other.

As a result of this latest incident, The Long Beach Ministers Alliance and Los Angeles Civil Rights Association, are launching a Violence Interruption Project called: “#awakenlb.”

#awakenlb” is a movement to activate, articulate and mediate.

The goal is three-fold.

To activate the community to engage existing violence prevention processes and mechanisms currently being provided through he city and private sectors.

Become more articulate regarding the authentic needs of their particular community for policing, support, employment and housing.

To champion and mediate proactive conversations between potential violence perpetrators.

When: Thursday April 21, 2016

Where: Rosa Parks Park, 15th and Alamitos, Long Beach, California

Time 7:00 PM

The entire community is invited as well as encouraged to attend.

#awakenlb is the beginning of a movement that will eventually cover and benefit every impacted corridor in the city of Long Beach.

Josie and I have Neighborhood Leadership tonight or we'd absolutely be there.

West Division Leadership Forum 04/20/2016

Introducing The Go Long Beach Run Map

In an effort to help police, Code Enforcement and community watch members, we are creating a map of our Go Long Beach Runs. This is for creating a running record of the tagging and dumping in the area. Gonna try to partner with Josephine A Villaseñor and do this for all of District Six. This is the first attempt, enlarge the map and it will show you where the gang related tagging, encampments and dumping is in the neighborhood. Doing this to make it easier for Community Watch Members to know where to keep their eyes on. I also created a graphic for this week to show you exactly what is happening and where. 

You will notice the dumping is largely around 14th street. And the tagging is largely around Gaviota, seemingly spreading out from the alleyway. What this tells me is if you live along Rose or Gaviota south of 15th, that alleyway needs to be watched. Also notice the trend along Orange and Alamitos of dumping. People tend to dump on that corner just south of Barcelona, and the tagging happens a lot on the East end of the street. All the minor tagging seems to radiate out from it, except for a street sweeping sign on Gundry, which was tagged much earlier.

Here is the ongoing map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en_US&app=mp&mid=z-3IaZ6r2iPM.k5__YcbLgrRE

 The map will be expanded to include unreported crime and sidewalk damage soon.

#SupportJosephine [6th District City Council]

Sunday Safety Update: 10/04/2015 to 10/202015

That map for this week in the MacArthur Park Neighborhood looks worse than it is. The biggest issue is the tagging has picked up. Keep an eye on 14th and Walnut, the south end of Rose and Anaheim and the north end of PCH and Gardenia. Notice that car thefts are trending towards Junipero and Anaheim. However, know that this is a much weaker pattern than last week. They seem to be trending that way, but if you look at a larger picture you can argue there is no real pattern.

You may still want to keep your cars locked up around 15th street and the east end of the neighborhood, near Junipero and Rotary Centennial Park. Do the same on Anaheim Street, Peterson and around MacArthur Park itself.

The multiple incident at the south end of the park was a fight. Since it was four fights on the same day at the same time, I assume they all refer to different people in the same fight. Near Junipero and 17th, the multiple incidents are two auto burglaries. Just south of that area, where the car thefts are trending towards us, we submitted about 15 Go Long Beach Requests for tagging and dumping to draw attention to the area as part of a Neighborhood Expansion effort. We will be getting the West Side of the 710 in response to the most recent shootings.

Lastly, notice the theft and assault on Alamitos. Stay safe in that area, especially as the construction continues. Also a large dumping area on Warner south of 14th has moved to Werner. This is actually one of the largest collections of dumped items I have ever seen.

District Six rep Dee Andrews has suggested Long Beach adopt the Dog Walker's program to the city's existing community watch program. 

The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday will hear a proposal from Councilman Dee Andrew to implement a Dog Walker Watch program as part of the city’s existing Community Watch Program. 

The idea, according to Andrew’s office, is that while residents are out walking their dogs, they can also be trained to watch for suspicious activity that police have called on citizens to report. With more than 63,000 dog-owning households in Long Beach, that is a lot of eyes and ears, officials say. - Full Story.

I have a cat, but I will still be watching anyway.

 

West Division Leadership Forum: Tonight's Topic Was Gangs

The West Division Leadership Forum is a bimonthly meeting for West Division residents of Long Beach. Each meeting centers on a different law-enforcement related topic. Because tonight's topic was gangs, it was rather well attended by around 100 or so West Division residents.

No gang name will be given any publicity here as I write up this meeting, which will be a general policy for this site.

The early part of the meeting centered on sharing with residents their resources for long term problem solving. Within West Division that is one of four resource officers that can be contacted through LBPDWest@LongBeach.Gov. The resident can use 911 or the police non emergency number, (562) 435-6711, to address the immediate problem. Then, if it's on going, they can ask their resource officer to address the core problem. Each resource officer is assigned to a different part of West Division, which encompasses Cherry to the end of Long Beach and the 405 to the beach.

The first speaker, Chris Rowe, was from the Fire Department and talked about grants through Homeland Security and CERT. Because I graduated from CERT, and am very familiar with the program, and I will write about that program at a later date. But very briefly CERT trains you in volunteer support for the Fire Department when major emergencies overwhelm their resources.

The majority of the meeting centered on gangs. Detective Hector Gutierrez of the GVC Department spoke about Long Beach gangs. Gutierrez  didn't address the crowd for very long before opening up the meeting to questions. The first question was if there had been an increase in gang activity since the Early Release Program.

Gutierrez did answer that question yes, but added the way gangs operate has changed significantly. In the past you could identify gangs by the colors they wore and signs they held up. Today most gang members try much harder to blend in. While they are still committing crimes, the underlying motive is money more often than violence. This keeps today's gangs active in drug sales, breaking and entering and newer crimes like identity theft.

Overall crime is down in the city/ state despite June trends

When asked how to stay safe, the officers reminded up because most of these gangs are into crimes of opportunity. Thus, the way to stay safe is to take their opportunities away. For instance, talking on your cell phone while walking down the street prevents you from paying attention to your surroundings, so wait until you get home to dial. Other suggestions like lock doors, keep valuables out of sight and let people know where you are were mostly common sense. 

Gutierrez estimates that Long Beach has 5,000 active gang members, and that accounts for about one percent of the population. However, be aware that number does not account for those gang members smart enough to keep their identity a secret or the fact that the concentration of gang members west of Cherry is probably somewhat higher than to the east of Cherry.

Many of the questions tonight centered on tagging and how it seemingly can go back up so quickly after its taken down. That question was never really ever answered. Another question asked was what is the practical purpose behind tagging in the first place. That was answered rather directly: to identify the gang's area, intimidate residents and warn other gang members to stay away.  

Lt. Mike Lewis did give a brief introduction to the Go Long Beach App, for residents who want to take that tagging down. Go Long Beach gives residents the opportunity to access City Hall, 24-hours a day from anywhere. It allows residents to quickly submit service requests for issues such as graffiti, potholes, illegal dumping, sidewalk repair and sign damage. You do not need to own or even live near the graffiti you report for it to be taken down; and removal is usually within 24-hours.Illegal dumping, while it will be addressed, is addressed in a much slower manner.

A good question was asked what gang intervention programs were being implemented. One very good example of an intervention program, Safe Passage, was used as an example of an intervention program being developed on Long Beach's West Side neighborhoods. The program is based on a Bay Area organization that uses volunteers to provide a safe route for children and youth as they walk home from school in San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin neighborhood. Now, residents of the Santa Fe Corridor are creating a similar program, partially in response to stabbing of Keyshawn Brooks, a former Cabrillo student killed while walking home from school in March. The program will use volunteers, businesses and other stake holders to help provide West Side students with a safe passage home from school, in hopes that events like the Brooks' murder do not repeat again. 

Just throwing this out there: it sounds like a great idea for the Anaheim Corridor as well.

Update: 08/27/2015: Also I have added a list of nine gang intervention programs to the neighborhood resources map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z-3IaZ6r2iPM.kwHU-tG05JoM

Safety Alert: Fatal Shooting Sunday: Pine & PCH

One Miles West of Neighborhood Boundaries: Police on Monday investigated the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of a 23-year-old man in Long Beach. The man, identified by coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter as 23-year-old Long Beach resident Andre Berero, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

 Anyone with information should contact LBPD Homicide Detectives Malcolm Evans and Mark Bigel Guarino at 562.570.7244. Anonymous tips may be submitted by calling 1.800.222.tips (8477), texting TIPLA plus your tip to crimes or (274637), or by visiting www.lacrimestoppers.org.

Meeting on Starting a Community Watch Next Tuesday

Long Beach residents are invited to the MacArthur Park/Whittier School Neighborhood monthly meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2015, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Mark Twain Neighborhood Library located at 1401 E. Anaheim St. in the Community Room. Free parking is available at the library parking lot.

The City of Long Beach Neighborhood Services Bureau in conjunction with the Long Beach Police Department will be holding an informative forum on the importance of and how to form a community watch program. This session will provide residents and community leaders alike an overview of a community watch program including the benefits vital to maintaining a safe community.

Long Beach residents are invited to the MacArthur Park/Whittier School Neighborhood monthly meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2015, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Mark Twain Neighborhood Library located at 1401 E. Anaheim St. in the Community Room. Free parking is available at the library parking lot.

The City of Long Beach Neighborhood Services Bureau in conjunction with the Long Beach Police Department will be holding an informative forum on the importance of and how to form a community watch program. This session will provide residents and community leaders alike an overview of a community watch program including the benefits vital to maintaining a safe community.

Community watch programs not only allow for the empowerment of residents in safeguarding their communities, but it also assists in building a stronger bond between residents. Community watch programs also afford residents the opportunity to share experiences, and collaborate ideas and preventive measures for a safer community.

Your attendance and involvement is greatly encouraged. Attendees will have the opportunity to exchange information directly with law enforcement personnel. Your shared concerns and input can be valuable in developing a more comprehensive approach to community safety. Please come join us:

State of the City: Stephens Middle School 05/27/2015