How Much Crime is in Lake Forest? - Part 4 (Notes From the Field)

I intended to move on to another aspect of the safety issue, but a question from one of our bloggers reminded me of the many e-mails I receive from people who live in Lake Forest and are worried about crime. To date I concentrated on crime statistics, so a few anecdotal reports seem appropriate.

Here are excerpts from 3 e-mails I received in the past few months. They are reported verbatim with the only changes being the omission of some identifying information. These e-mails come from people living in 3 different parts of the city.

#1 

"...I would also like to make you aware of problems that are growing here in Lake Forest that I do not feel are being addressed seriously enough. Gangs are growing all around us! I have seen the O.C. Sheriff Gang unit over there as well as spoken to officers who have told me they have to walk over there now, because they run away if they see them in cars. We have graffiti on the walls in our neighborhood regularly. We have had to install video surveillance around our home as well as many neighbors for security. When speaking to a police office sitting on our thoroughfare of a street to monitor traffic, he even said he would have surveillance if he lived here. We have drugs being abused all the time on Osprey at all times of the day and night. We find Marijuana containers thrown in the street frequently. We have spoken to the city's Sheriff's representative about the loud parties behind us with booming music, microphones and karaoke until all hours of the nite to no avail. The police say they cannot make them turn off their music unless someone files a complaint. No one wants to file a complaint for fear of retaliation. We have been homeowners in Lake Forest for twenty years. I feel we live on the wrong side of the tracks to get any attention! Thank you for hearing me out!"

#2

"...Oh, I forgot to tell you. In addition to the armed robbery on the sidewalk in our neighborhood that went unreported to the public, the man across the street who just moved in with his wife had his truck broken into and a bag stolen that contained hard-drives with 7 years of academic work on them. He told me that he walked around the neighborhood asking neighbors if they saw anything suspicious. He told me that everybody had a story about some sort of crime against their property or person. He happened to find one of the hard-drives thrown by the wayside under a bush down the street. He asked the police to dust it for fingerprints. They apparently declined. How's that for "protect and serve"?

That burglary also went unreported in the police blotter in the newspaper.

Again, this makes me very suspicious about how much serious crime in Lake Forest is actually reported to it's residents by the media? Internal police records are one thing. But the residents need to know if there are trends of burglaries or hold-ups in our immediate neighborhoods so that we can take appropriate action to protect ourselves and our families from harm."

#3

"...The folks on the park end of Vista Way and people on Respit are pretty diligent about calling the sheriff, but it seems like it just keeps escalating. People walking up the gulley behind the homes, prowling around. People sitting by the Vista Way walkway to the park, by those big trees, passing around bottles of jack daniels...
And then there are the people that just hang out that don't belong in the neighborhood - when you see groups of adult men sitting in a parked car for any length of time, its obvious they are not there having a bible study.

The areas along Vista Way and Respit where the street is alongside backyards are a favorite place for couples - as evidenced by the condoms that are regularly found in the street. Residents sweep up and throw them away so that they are not found by children, or ingested by dogs or ducks or geese."

So there we have it. I'm not saying this is happening in every neighborhood, but here are reports from 3 people in 3 different neighborhoods, and they came to me anecdotally, without my asking for them. They merely came up in conversations about how people wanted to live and some of the problems that confronted them.

The police have my full support. In the past I have worked as an independent contractor for Police departments so I am fully aware of the problems that the Police face. My comments about crime in the city are not intended as a slam or even a criticism of police services. These are intended to give all of us a perspective on what is actually happening.

That being said, things could be better. Here are some suggestions -

1. We would be better served if more civilians helped (as they do in the STARS program) and if police were restricted to doing police work rather than work that could be done by non police personnel. Let's do a better job recruiting volunteers to help with non essential police work.

2. One of the major sources of crime is urban blight, and urban blight has been growing in our city, partially because of the economy, and partially because the City has not addressed this problem in an effective way. Money is being spent beautifying our roadways while walls are in bad shape, lights don't work, abandoned cars stay too long on our streets, people are living in garages, etc. I'd like to see the Planning Commission set up a committee on urban blight and I'd like to see some affirmative action in this area. Other cities have done this with much success.

3. Let's do a better job informing the public. Since 70% of us live in HOAs, I'd like to borrow the good idea from Jim Richert, former Lake 2 HOA President, who formed a council of HOA Board Directors that used to meet monthly to discuss common issues. I'd like to revive that idea at the City level, and have reps from all of the HOAs come to the city once a month to meet with the Council and the Commissioners and share concerns, especially about safety, but we could deal with a host of areas of common concern.

You probably have some ideas too. Please share them. I like to say "Together we Can".