ANAHEIM : Anna Drive Group Urges War on Crime

Angry testimony and pointed questions were directed at the police chief Wednesday night as about 350 residents gathered at a church hall to ask him what his department is doing to rid the Anna Drive area of crime.

“In recent months, I don’t know how many times BBs have been shot at us and how many bottles and used condoms have littered our field,” said Alice Christiansen, a teacher at St. Anthony Claret School, where the meeting was held.

She is a member of Orange County Congregation-Community Organizations, a group of 15 churches which sponsored the meeting at the St. Anthony Parish Hall. Only about a dozen residents of Anna Drive attended the meeting, which was conducted in English and Spanish.

Anna Drive is a street in the northern part of the city, where families live in densely packed apartment complexes. Residents say the street is plagued by gang activity, drug deals and graffiti.

Many Anna Drive residents have requested a police crackdown of the kind conducted in the troubled Jeffrey-Lynne area of Anaheim.

“We can’t do it by ourselves,” Anaheim Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said. “It has to be a unified and combined effort of our community.”

Molloy told residents that the department’s money and staff are limited: The city cannot put the same kind of resources into all crime-infested neighborhoods that it expended in the Jeffrey Lynne area.

Both residents and police agreed to join forces and meet later to map out an anti-crime strategy.

A meeting will also be held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 1100 S. Center St. in Santa Ana, at 7:30 tonight to address that city’s problems with gangs and drugs. Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters is expected to attend the meeting.

The parish is near two of the city’s biggest problem areas with “every kind of drug deal you can imagine” taking place nearby, said Father Enrique Sera, pastor of the church.

“Our community is plagued with gang and drug problems, and we’re trying to organize our people against crime,” Sera said.