Inglewood’s Darby-Dixon neighborhood turns around
Sarah Moore | 5-18-2010 | Comments |
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Sergeant Robert Richmond can still remember when people lined up along Lawrence Street in Inglewood to buy crack from drug dealers who posted up on corners in broad daylight. At night, gunshots would wake up Jacqueline Graves, a 65-year-old widow. In one particularly brutal example of the horrors that permeated the streets, in 1997 gang members shot a 5-year-old boy and beat up a pregnant woman.But in this troubled neighborhood a budding cooperation between community and law enforcement forged a new kind of trust—and a fragile hope.
Today, the neighborhood boasts a Target-anchored shopping center. Gone are the apartment buildings that once housed drug dealers and squatters. When classes let out at nearby Woodworth Elementary School, the students walk home without fear of being harassed. The number of violent crimes in the area has dropped 57% in the last ten years, according to Gina Quinones, a crime analyst for the Inglewood Police Department. Overall crime is down 43%.
“Everyone who pays rent here should be able to come and go as they please and not have to live in fear,” Graves said. “I have to live here, so I need to feel safe.”
Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s gang violence and drug use plagued Inglewood, a city of approximately 115,000 that calls itself the “City of Champions” and is a mix of tidy middle-class housing tracts and shoddy apartment complexes surrounded by forbidding fences.
Nowhere was the crime more prevalent than in the Darby-Dixon neighborhood, a six-block stretch between 104th St. and Century Blvd. that the Crenshaw Mafia called home.
“That place was a nightmare in the ‘80s,” said Mike McBride, a retired lieutenant who joined the Inglewood Police Department in 1980 and worked as a narcotics officer in the Darby-Dixon neighborhood. “There were drug dealers on every corner, and it brought in all the bad elements.”
The Inglewood police created task forces, narcotics teams, and an ACT Anti-Crime Team to deal with gang- and drug-related violence. As many as 25 to 30 officers out of a roughly 200-officer force were assigned to the Darby-Dixon neighborhood, but their presence was not enough.
“We would go down there and get rid of problems and then leave and things would get bad again,” McBride
At the heart of the drugs and violence in the area was the Crenshaw Mafia, a division of the notorious Bloods gang that ran rampant in Darby-Dixon and ruled the streets with terror and force.
The gang operated an efficient “security team,” made up of snipers who shot at police and rival gang members from the roofs of buildings, young boys who rode their bikes around and alerted gang members to approaching patrol cars, taggers who marked buildings as “CM territory,” members who vandalized cars and property of residents who complained and pit bulls who served as canine security.
Former District Attorney Gil Garcetti told the Los Angeles Sentinel that gang members were recruiting at nearby Morningside High, Monroe Junior High and even Woodworth Elementary and that residents were being held hostage.
A judge issued an injunction against the gang in 1997, imposing a curfew and preventing them from using cell phones, walkie-talkies, and pagers in public. The injunction was in response to the shooting of a 5-year-old boy and the beating of a pregnant woman, both believed to be acts of the Crenshaw Mafia.
But even in the wake of the injunction, violence and terror continued. In 1998, the police department recorded 49 violent crimes in the Darby-Dixon area alone, along with 37 burglaries and 70 auto thefts.
The police struggled to gain the community’s trust, as some residents felt like the department wasn’t doing its job.
“You would hear gunshots and not see or hear a police officer for hours,” said Graves, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1999.
At left: Jacqueline Graves
The violence continued until 2003 when a community group decided to take action. Activists from Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace—a nonprofit that does advocacy work in the community and is made up of volunteers, former gang members and staff—formed a cease-fire committee to curb gang shootings in the Darby-Dixon neighborhood. The group aimed to work hand in hand with police officers to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and gang members in the area.
“When you have law enforcement and community residents honestly sitting at the table trying to ensure a better relationship and a working relationship, you’re going to definitely see things get better,” said Khalid Shah, executive director of Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace.
Activists from the cease-fire committee reached out to young gang members and offered them opportunities for jobs and education. Shah said one of the reasons the cease-fire was successful was because the residents warmed to the concept and bought into the efforts.
“We wouldn’t have had the success we did without the help of the residents,” Shah said.
“The police department also knew what we were doing and helped reinforce our efforts. We were able to build some trust and better relationships between the law enforcement and community, and this process was crucial to the success of our efforts.”
Apartment owners also took a stand. For years, Crenshaw Mafia gang members had taken over apartment buildings in the area, said Sgt. Juan Torres, who was a senior lead officer on the Darby-Dixon task force. A big reason drug dealers had been able to operate on such a large scale in the area “had a lot to do with residents who lived there who would protect dealers,” McBride said.
One landlord decided he didn’t want gang members living in his buildings. Sherman Ferguson, who has lived in Inglewood since 1974 and been in charge of several apartment buildings in the area since 1981, developed a strict renting policy.
“I run a credit check, a background check, look at tax returns,” Ferguson said. “I go and see where they’re currently living, and they have to be working.”
He also enrolled in a community-based police course to learn how the police department works. He installed security cameras outside his buildings and committed to working together with the police. His commitment marked an emerging cooperation between law enforcement and the community.
Police officers helped secure the property so gang members would not come back, and owners shared information on who not to rent to, Torres said. By compiling a list of known gang members and refusing to rent to them, the apartment owners—with the police department’s help—were able to regain control over their buildings.
With this partnership came the community’s newfound trust in the police department.
“What I started to see was more police patrolling, and it was very well needed,” Graves said. “I appreciate that they’re doing a better job.”
More crimes began to be reported, a sign that residents were beginning to trust the police and were actually calling incidents in, Richmond said.
In 2006 the police increased their presence in the area by adding a police substation on Century Blvd.
But, in spite of widespread improvements and renewed hope in the area, the solutions have not come without troubling setbacks. In March of 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the Inglewood Police Department’s use of deadly force. The investigation was in response to a series of officer-involved shootings, some involving unarmed suspects. In July of 2009, the FBI also announced its investigation.
“There were four officer-involved shootings in two months,” Richmond said. “So the Department of Justice came in with the FBI to evaluate.” Graves said she appreciates the police department’s work, despite concerns over its use of force.
“There’s always going to be a bad apple in the bunch,” Graves said. “No matter what they do to rectify the situation there’s always that one, but I think they’re doing much better.”
Major metropolitan cities such as Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago have taken note of the successes of Darby-Dixon and have adopted programs similar to the cease-fire committee that was initiated in Inglewood, Shah said.
For them, the success is a blueprint on how they can make their cities safer. For the residents of Darby-Dixon, the success means they can finally live in peace.
“When I walk out the gate and look both ways down the street, I feel completely comfortable,” Graves said. “Because I know at some point the police are going to come patrolling, and if I call them they’ll come.”
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