Public Safety Committee Encounters Rough Start in Special Meeting

It was a meeting that vividly illustrated the difficulties the City Council Public Safety Committee has had over the last six months in scheduling and holding meetings.

Before a City Council chamber packed with members of the city Health Department, the Police Department, City staff members and concerned residents Thursday evening, the 6 p.m. special meeting was delayed for 35 minutes, awaiting the arrival of Councilmember Tyron Hampton, delayed in traffic from Long Beach.

The special meeting had been called by Committee Chair John Kennedy, who noted the “many meetings missed” for various reasons since at least October.

Councilmember and Vice Mayor Gene Masuda was not at the meeting at all, which prompted Hampton to call for his dismissal from the Committee. A testy exchange then ensued between Committee Chair John Kennedy and Hampton regarding the number of Committee responsibilities various Councilmembers hold. Kennedy claimed that some Councilmembers are on five committees, but when challenged by Hampton to name which members, he declined to do so.

Following a fifteen-minute discussion with assistance from City Manager Steve Mermell, the Committee passed a motion to hold its meetings on the first Monday of each month at 4:15 p.m., and every third Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m.

Kennedy then reported that because of the short time frame of the meeting, and because one Councilmember needed to leave early, three informational presentations — a suicide data update, a mental health services report. and a report on mobile food vending — would not be heard. The meeting would have to end by 7:30, said Kennedy.

Just before 7 p.m., the Committee began to hear a report from Police Chief Phillip Sanchez, who briefly detailed a timeline of shooting incidents beginning in late December, highlighted by two shooting deaths on January 6, and a non-lethal shooting the following day.

According to Sanchez, the shootings are part of an ongoing gang feud between “at least three local gangs” in Pasadena, Duarte, and Altadena.

Additionally, Sanchez reported that additional shootings in Pomona and Monrovia are related to the current situation in Pasadena. Since the outburst of shootings, Pasadena police, with the help of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and its own Violence Reduction Task Force, have arrested nine gang members and seized 10 weapons.

The Pasadena Police helicopter team also assisted in the arrest of gang members in the process of a burglary outside of city limits, and which led to the seizure of an additional five weapons.

There have also been, since January 15, 49 foot patrols in local parks in Districts 1,3 and 5, said Sanchez. The Police have also conducted 36 field contacts (stops with interviews), issued approximately 130 traffic citations, as well as conducted 12 parole and probation compliance checks, he reported.

“The vast majorities of our arrestees have been gang members, or had some gang affliliation,” said Sanchez.

These additional investigations yielded the seizure of 13 more weapons, Sanchez reported.

“This is an ongoing effort by the police department,” said Sanchez, who confirmed that the Police department would “continue its current strategy of working with the Sheriff’s Department, along with its efforts in the community.

“We think we are talking to the right people, and asking the right questions,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez also noted the difficulties in dealing with the rapidly increasing number of guns on the street, noting that a Gun Buyback program held in the last two years recovered 211 guns, “but there are approximately 11,000 guns sold in L.A. County every day,” he said.

Councilmember Hampton asked Sanchez about the increasing presence of “gun runners” or gun dealers in Pasadena, to which Sanchez responded, “These are not licensed gun dealers. These are gang members.”

In the public comment section of the meeting, ACLU representative Kris Ockershauser commented on the “lack of trust” between the police and the community in the affected neighborhoods, citing last year’s “Graziano Report” by Dr. Lisa Graziano of Cal State LA, which noted that a majority of Northwest Pasadena residents feel they are treated differently by the police than other city residents in other areas.

Said Claremont Avenue resident Melvin Ferguson, “Things are so bad that the other day I was approached by a salesman selling bulletproof windows. I have these young people outside my house every Friday night, with nowhere to go, throwing whiskey bottles. I feel like I work for the city every Saturday morning, cleaning everything up.”

Ferguson asked the Committee for increased hours at Jackie Robinson Center, or a “midnight basketball” program to give “these young people a place to go to.”

“This is a critical situation. We are terrified,” said Jahari DeWitt Rogers, a 35-year Pasadena resident. “We hear the gunshots right outside our door.”

Rogers told the Council she took her young sons outside of the city for activities since there was “a dearth of things for young people to do here.” She also asked for the construction of a YMCA in Northwest Pasadena.

As time ran out on the meeting, Director Jaylene Mosley of the Flintridge Center, along with a handful of the program’s successful clients, delivered a compelling presentation on the work of the center in restoring the lives and records of former gang members. Ex-convicts Edgar Tirado and Michael Brown both told the Committee that the programs at Flintridge had changed their lives and finally given them meaningful employment. Mosley then told the Committee that the center’s City funding would end February 28 of this year.

Following the presentation, Kennedy asked City Manager Mermell to agendize a City Council discussion on ways to restore funding for the Center.