Nearly 150 Sunset Mesa, Castellammare and Pacific View Estates residents gathered at the Getty Villa Thursday, Oct. 23, to address what they are calling an epidemic of crime in their neighborhood.
“We’re here tonight because we have a problem,” said Linda Kaye, president of the Sunset Mesa Property Owners Association. “There’s no worse experience than having your personal space invaded.”
Kaye said there have been 35 crimes, mostly residential burglaries, in the area in the last five months.
She said suspects are wearing backpacks, changing clothes in neighbor’s yards and going through side doors and windows.
“We must take action, and we must take it now,” Kaye said.
She told the audience that Sunset Mesa should have gates. Her assertion drew a round of thunderous applause from those present.
Sunset Mesa and Pacific View Estates are divided between unincorporated county and the city of LA, which is why criminals are drawn to the area, according to authorities.
The neighborhood is divided from roughly where Pacific Coast Highway and Surfwood and Coastline drives meet to the middle of Sandy Cape Drive.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has jurisdiction over the side closest to Topanga Canyon while the Los Angeles Police Department handles the Getty Villa half.
Sheriff Lt. John Lecrivain said the department’s average response time to crimes in the area is about 10 minutes, an acceptable standard with county emergency calls.
But he said this would improve once a sheriff station is built in Malibu near the civic center.
He also said the sheriff’s department is planning to hire more personnel thanks to funding gains in the budget from the L.A. County Supervisor’s office.
LAPD Senior Lead Officer Christopher Ragsdale, who worked as a senior officer in the Palisades for eight years, said there is a broader regional issue involved because of the area’s proximity to the county line.
Responding to burglar alarms is a low priority for Los Angeles police because more than 90 percent of the time they turn out to be false alarms, he said.
The good news is there have been no confrontations or injuries as a result of these burglaries, Ragsdale added.
Residents asked the LAPD and sheriff’s deputies to work together to try to increase surveillance of the area.
Lecrivain said that since July, about 12 suspects have been identified by sheriff’s investigators using surveillance video.
“This problem didn’t start yesterday and it’s not going to be solved by tomorrow,” Ragsdale said.
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