Del Rey Neighborhood Group Meets with Police

The Del Rey Homeowners & Neighbors Association held its spring general meeting, which included an election of new officers and a presentation on crime by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division and a school police representative.

Capt. Jon Peters fielded questions Wednesday from the packed audience of roughly 70 people and was asked about how police dispatchers work.

"It's all about prioritization," Peters said. "It's a constant triage out there."

Crimes of violence that are in progress are the top priority and officers get dispatched to crime scenes depending on their severity, Peters said. For example, officers who are dispatched to a crime scene with a top priority "Code Three," can respond with lights and sirens and can race through red lights and violate other rules of the road. A "Code Two" dispatch means that officers would go directly to the scene, but would have to obey normal traffic rules. Non-coded calls are the lowest priority.

"For Code Three in this 26-square-mile division we average about a six-minute response time," Peters said. "Code Two calls take about 12 minutes and non-coded calls are about 28 minutes. We do the best we can in responding to those situations."

Lt. Armando Farias of the Los Angeles Unified School Police said his top priority is making sure students get to and from school safely.

"It's a tough task that we have, but we do it on a daily basis," Farias said.

An audience member asked Farias about the most common problems and he listed petty theft, marijuana and fighting.

"We get a lot of petty theft and we get a lot of marijuana," Farias said. "Kids are smoking weed every day."

At some schools the students are moving the fighting away from campus to avoid campus police, Farias said.

"They're moving out into the community in large groups to have fights. They are staging fights with 200 to 300 kids out there," he said.

Peters said that the LAPD has a strong partnership with school police and cited Westchester High School as an example. There used to be a lot of street robberies of students with thieves taking their iPods and jewelry, Peters said. The department worked with school police and neighbors to form a Safe Passage program in which residents stand in front of their homes and look out for students.

"So far this year, we have not had a single street robbery in and around the Westchester campus," Peters said.

Del Rey Senior Lead Officer Marcy Garcia also participated in the presentation at the Venice Japanese Community Center along with interim Senior Lead Officer Joe Cruz.

The neighborhood group also held an election for new officers. Elizabeth Pollock was elected president, Marlene Savage was elected first vice president and Brian Reiff was named second vice president.