In Wake of Gang Shootings, Community, Leaders Gather to Examine Underlying Causes

“There are too many firearms in our community,” Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez told a packed meeting of about 85 community members and leaders, clergy and activists at the Women’s City Club Friday afternoon focused on addressing a series of gang shootings in Altadena and Pasadena which have left three dead since late December.

District 3 Councilmember John Kennedy, whose office organized the meeting, called it “one of many efforts around the city to have a discussion as to how we as a community can come together.”

Kennedy explained further: “Most of the meetings that I hold are in my district, in Northwest Pasadena. This meeting is an effort to suggest that all of us in the community must work together.”

“As many of you know … this is an intractable problem,” Kennedy noted. “It has a whole host of issues that underlie why we are here, and we are not going to to solve it by having one meeting.”

“This is very difficult work,” he continued, “and it will require all of us as a community, not the black community, not the brown community, not the white community, but all of us, as a community working together, if we want to build a one Pasadena, a healthy Pasadena, a safe Pasadena where young men and women find opportunities and can grow in our own community.”

Police Chief Sanchez then gave a detailed overview of all of the inter-related shootings in the area since late December, beginning with an Altadena shooting on December 20 involving three gang members which resulted in no reported injuries.

Two days later, police investigated a “shots fired” call in the 1200 block of North Fair Oaks Avenue. A Pasadena resident, Brandon Douglas, was killed in the incident.

On December 23, the Chief reported, another shooting occurred in Altadena where shots were fired into the home of an alleged gang member, with no injuries. Another shooting occurred on December 27, again, with no injuries.

No shootings occurred again until January 6, said Chief Sanchez, when four people were shot and two died in an incident on West Claremont in Northwest Pasadena. That mass shootings actually occurred during a vigil for the December 22nd victim, Brandon Douglas. The mourners, sensing trouble, had actually moved away from their original gathering spot on North Fair Oaks Avenue before the shooting broke out.

Sanchez noted that in the recent shootings, many of the suspects and affiliated gang members are “older, 30 plus,” saying, “These are not kids, these are adults perpetrating this violence.”

Another shooting occurred in Duarte on January 7, said Chief Sanchez, when two alleged gang members were hit by gunfire. That same day, Sanchez activated the Pasadena Police Violence Reduction Task Force for the second time in less than a year. The Task Force is a specialized team of officers focused on gang activities. That team subsequently stopped a vehicle later that day, and after a foot pursuit, arrested two more gang members and seized two automatic weapons, including a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, Chief Sanchez reported.

On that same day, reported Sanchez, yet another shooting occurred on Claremont Street with one resulting injury.

The following day, Sunday, January 8, members of the Violence Reduction Task Force arrested four gang members and seized five semi-automatic pistols.

Sanchez explained that Pasadena police ultimately arrested ten people and seized nine firearms in a three-day period. He said his Department has “reached out to its partners” in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in order to aid their efforts in connection with investigating the shootings in Duarte and Altadena.

Sanchez said that the rate of violent crime increased 3% in the United States and 8% in California during the past year.

Sanchez also asked for help from the religious leaders at the meeting, saying,” We can’t police our way out of this problem and I am not going to solve this by myself. We’re not getting the support we need from the community. The investigations that we have initiated have come from our own work. We need help from the community.”

He also assured the clergy members — in a remark which also applies to all residents — that anyone who provided information to the police would be protected.

“I know it’s dangerous,” said Chief Sanchez, “and I know it’s concerning, and I know that you have to live in the neighborhood that you live in, but at the end of the day, we have to come together as a community.”

Sanchez also noted that Pasadena police are being assisted by other Gang Reduction Task Force member agencies, which he said is a joint effort that includes the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and “a Federal Agency,” though he would not reveal which, “other than to say the Federal Government is involved.”

Finally, said Sanchez, “We made a significant impact over the past weekend, but there are a ton of guns out there, and they are in the wrong hands, and at the end of the day, if we don’t figure out how to stop the flow of guns in our community, and we don’t create more opportunities for those who want opportunities, by affordable housing, better education, jobs, and dealing with mental health in a more effective way, then, ladies and gentlemen, we will be right back here, having this discussion again.”

Following the presentations by Councilmember Kennedy and the Police Chief, all media was requested to leave the meeting, which then broke up into small work groups in various separate areas — Role of City Government, The Role of Business Owners, Immediate Action to Help, Specific Followup-Ongoing Tasks/Actions/Assignments, and Role of the Community.