SKID ROW STRATEGY HITS FIRST AT DRUGS

Video Surveillance Also Is Planned

Lawmakers Urge Ban On 'Dumping' Homeless Downtown

City and state officials Tuesday promised a new attack on the
persistent problems of Los Angeles' skid row, beginning with a
crackdown on rampant drug dealing in the area, which police say
generates roughly one-fifth of the city's drug arrests.

The Los Angeles Police Department plans to install video surveillance
cameras on skid-row streets and increase the number of undercover
detectives and uniformed patrol officers, officials said.

For the longer term, state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) and
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said they plan to push
new state laws to reduce the area's problems.

One would require law enforcement agencies to return inmates released
from county jails to the communities where they were arrested.

The idea, Cedillo said, is to reduce the number of inmates who end up
on skid row after being released from the Men's Central Jail.

"If they came from Calabasas, they should be released to Calabasas.
If they come from Palmdale, they should be released to Palmdale,"
said Cedillo, whose district covers downtown and much of the area around it.

Three months ago, LAPD officials publicly accused other law
enforcement agencies and medical facilities of dumping homeless
people, mental patients and released criminals onto skid row.

In a report issued Tuesday, the Police Department cites dozens of
cases of people being taken to the downtown neighborhood by 12 police
agencies and at least three area hospitals. The report was compiled
by reviewing the logs of facilities that provide care to the homeless
on skid row.

Downtown community leaders and service providers praised the new effort.

Although the proposals would make only a dent in the problems, they
mark the first time in years that political leaders have taken the
area's ills seriously, they said.

"We've been waiting 20 years for this moment to happen," said Estela
Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Assn. "We've got
law enforcement, business owners and social service providers all
sitting down on the same side of the table. We've got policymakers
giving skid row the attention that it hasn't been given before."

Still, she was quick to add: "We want more than attention. We want results."

Officials who discussed the plan at a meeting of the Los Angeles
Police Commission acknowledged that more services are needed for the
homeless. But they said the first step in alleviating skid row's
problems needs to be crime reduction.

Addressing poverty and mental illness in the area "is almost
impossible until we end this drug and alcohol swap meet," Cedillo said.

He and Nunez plan legislation that would increase penalties for
people arrested dealing drugs near treatment and recovery centers,
much as the law currently treats drug crimes committed near schools.
(Skid row has the largest concentration of such facilities in
Southern California.)

Cedillo, who previously served on the staff of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said he had rather reluctantly come to the
conclusion that tougher penalties were needed.

"That is a long journey for someone like myself," he said. But, he
added, no alternative will work for skid row, where drugs are dealt
and consumed just outside the doors to treatment centers.

"For the addicts downtown, it's like going to an AA meeting when
there are Jello shots being served outside," he said, referring to a
mixture of Jello and alcohol.

Capt. Jodi Wakefield of the Police Department's Central Division said
her officers are on track to make 6,500 arrests for drug-related
crimes by the end of this year.

The police report found that the narcotics trade has turned skid row
into a magnet for gangs wanting to unload drugs. It cited more than a
dozen specific gangs that use the district as a distribution zone.

"Gang members are being drawn to skid row to sell dope. Most of their
clientele are local people -- homeless people -- willing to spend
every cent they have on dope," LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon said.

Wakefield said: "The whole problem we are having is holding these
people accountable. We arrest them and they get out. They go five,
six, seven times. We need to be tougher when it comes to our judicial
system and the penalties these people are getting. They need to be held to it."

Wakefield is hoping to make a dent in the problem with a dozen
undercover narcotics officers who will soon begin working on skid row
with the goal of targeting major distributors.

In addition, commanders have sent nearly four dozen recruits from the
Police Academy to patrol skid row and surrounding downtown
neighborhoods such as the toy district and old bank district.

They will be aided by new cameras to be paid for by the Central City
East Assn., an organization that represents business interests in
part of downtown, and will be installed in skid row within two
months. Such surveillance cameras have proved effective in Hollywood
and MacArthur Park.

The report was prepared by Capt. Andrew Smith, who oversees policing
of skid row and was the first to make public accusations about
dumping after noticing two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies
taking handcuffs off a homeless man just released from the Men's Central.

Deputy Police Chief Cayler "Lee" Carter Jr. said that since September
officers had seen a hiatus in law enforcement agencies bringing
people downtown against their will.

"I think that practice is on everyone's radar," Carter said. "No one
wants to be embarrassed by that act."

Cedillo and Nunez, however, say their legislation would provide a
long-term solution to the dumping problem.

At present, Cedillo said, people are often released directly from the
courts or jails into downtown -- miles from their home neighborhoods.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said he could not
comment until he sees the legislators' proposal.

Nunez conceded that releasing inmates to their home communities will
also require opening new treatment facilities. In the past, many
communities have resisted halfway houses and agencies that help the
homeless and drug addicts.

Resolving the problem "requires better planning and permitting,"
Nunez said, "to identify areas with need and find locations within
those areas of need to target services, so that the demand draws
service providers there, not the other way around."

The new initiative should be the start of a more coordinated and
aggressive effort to clean up skid row and provide more help to its
residents, he added.

"Right now we have a piecemeal approach," Nunez said. "It's not
dealing with the problem."