CRIME RAMPANT IN NORTH HILLS DISTRICT

NORTH HILLS -- Arrests by narcotics officers have skyrocketed this
year in an area police call the "biggest open air drug market" in the
San Fernando Valley.

In an effort to crack down on pushers and drug users in the Sepulveda
Corridor in North Hills and Panorama City, police have busted more
than 153 people on suspicion of narcotics possession this year,
compared with 58 in the same period last year.

The Los Angeles Police Department has redirected officers -- scrapping
and borrowing from various divisions -- to do undercover work in an
area being described as filled with drug activity.

The move comes as the LAPD is trying to juggle regular service calls
with special operations. With trouble recruiting and a decline in
officers, the department cut specialized units last year to focus on
patrol, but Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann, the top cop in the Valley,
said Sepulveda is particularly troublesome.

"Drug dealing in some cases is quite rampant," he said. "People come
from all over Southern California to buy drugs there. In some cases
you have rival gangs dealing dope on opposite corners of the street."

Councilman Alex Padilla, whose district includes the Sepulveda
Corridor area, welcomes a continued fight against drugs. But he also
believes long-term efforts such as a community park proposed for the
neighborhood this summer, complete with a police and community drop-in
center, will help residents keep a positive attitude. A groundbreaking
for the $5 million Sepulveda Park West is expected in July.

"Positive activities give children and families in the area something
to look forward to instead of something to fear," he said. But he
admits, the drug war "is a complicated battle. The numbers of arrests
go up and down. Sometimes it feels like a cat-and-mouse game. When we
clean up one area, they move away into another area."

Neighborhood under siege

Trouble is nothing new to the area, filled with apartments stacked
against each other and spotted with security bars, cameras and bright
lights.

In 1989, growing street violence and drug sales prompted police to set
up barricades around the 12-square-block area bounded by Sepulveda
Boulevard, Burnet Avenue, and Parthenia and Nordhoff streets. The
barricades came down recently, partly because they also kept out
paramedics and other emergency vehicles. Since then, officials have
installed plastic barricades that bend when a vehicle passes over them.

An increase in the sales of rock cocaine in the neighborhood led to an
average of one to two shootings a month in the area in 1999, police
said.

Since that time, residents have been urging the city to reopen a
community police center there, saying it will be needed more once the
new park is completed.

The news that drug crimes are rising doesn't surprise Ivelise
Markovits, the director of Penny Lane, a residential treatment center
for emotionally disturbed adolescents in the area.

"Everybody hates the area and hates the fact there's so many gang
members around at night," she said. "We've taken a lot of measures to
ensure the safety of our kids and the staff. Little by little we're
helping in the transformation of the neighborhood, but it's going to
take a long time."

Sting task force

Police have upped the ante with a series of half-day sting
operations.

In three hours Thursday at Gresham Street and Memory Park Avenue,
police nabbed 26 people in a sting involving undercover cops selling
fake dope: cut-up macadamia nuts that resemble rock cocaine.

At the direction of Detective Rob Holcomb, a lifetime Valley resident
and 13-year LAPD veteran, about 30 officers worked the sting.

"We're trying to get the word out to the buyers that this is not the
place to come," Holcomb said, as he drove in the North Hills
neighborhood in an unmarked car. "The neighbors are victims, and
children are involved. We've had moms do the deal in the car right
across the baby seat."

Some of the arrestees had been there before, caught in the same sting
in the same neighborhood, and in some cases by the same officers.

One man returned to the same area from his work only to be recognized
by police. He was an informant for a while, but the police busted his
dealer and he came back to buy.

Others were more desperate. One man tried to trade food stamps for
rock.

James Barber, a 51-year-old maintenance worker, was arrested Thursday.
He already had a court hearing pending due to an arrest in the area in
November.

"This is not going to go good because I made somewhat of a deal," said
Barber, waiting to be booked in a staging area. "I was intending to do
15 weekends so I can save my job.

"I understand the police have a job to do, and rock can bring on a lot
of crime. It will take good people and turn them into demons."

Police average about 30 arrests during the four-hour stings, but those
stings come at a cost for police.

'Scratch and borrow'

The LAPD is faced with personnel shortages, recruiting problems and
limited resources. Crime overall is also increasing, and the public is
demanding more attention paid to routine calls for service and traffic
enforcement issues.

The Valley narcotics division, with a lieutenant's spot and about five
other positions vacant, has had to borrow 11 officers from the five
Valley divisions.

Bergmann said matching cops to crime is a constant balancing
act.

"The Sepulveda Corridor has always been the central focus point where
people come to buy drugs," he said. "We asked narcotics to do these
operations as much as they can. But we also still have to answer 911
calls."

Efforts are also stymied by overtime constraints, police said, and a
department that is trying desperately to balance specialized law
enforcement duties with patrolling efforts. The Valley narcotics
budget was also cut.

"We kind of scratch and borrow, and do the best we can," said
Detective Jeffrey Godown, who is in charge of the Valley narcotics
unit.

But he said the neighborhood is filled with dealing.

"You can go fishing in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening,
and you're always going to catch fish," Goodwin said. "But for us,
they keep coming back. It makes it very frustrating."