Agencies Join Forces to Remove Abandoned Vehicles From Streets

In an effort to rid the San Fernando Valley of abandoned vehicles, Los Angeles police, the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Motor Vehicles banded together Thursday to impound hundreds of derelict cars.

About 40 police officers assigned to “Operation CRUSH” fanned out across the Valley starting at 6:30 a.m. Thursday to impound vehicles left curbside for 72 hours or more, in violation of city codes. Tow trucks dragged the cars and trucks--some mere shells--to police garages and designated junkyards to be scrapped.

The project was designed to beautify the Valley and eliminate eyesores that police said encourage crime.

“This is another step to upgrade the quality of the neighborhood and downgrade the crime,” Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker said, calling the vehicles “graffiti on wheels.”

By early evening, about 200 had been removed, in about equal numbers from East and West Valley streets.

“It’s just all over,” said Detective Robert Graybill, who heads the department’s Valley auto theft task force.

Graybill said officers several days ago began identifying abandoned or derelict vehicles and slapped brightly colored stickers on them warning owners that the vehicles could be impounded. Although the city Department of Transportation is usually responsible for their removal, the sheer number led police officials to step in with Operation CRUSH.

Kroeker said the presence of many derelict vehicles was a blight that created the impression of deteriorating neighborhoods--an image the project would help to reverse.

“It’s a signal . . . that there’s a lack of concern, a lack of vitality in the neighborhood,” Kroeker said, standing amid hot, churning dust Thursday afternoon at the Pick Your Part junkyard in Sun Valley, where several cars were taken for destruction.

“We hear from people all the time how perturbed they are about it. It tends to contribute to the long-range crime problem, because it’s part of the deterioration of the neighborhood,” he said, adding that the vehicles are also an invitation to thieves to scavenge parts.

Police officials said the number of derelict vehicles on the streets has steadily risen over the past three years, as owners increasingly abandon automobiles rather than take them to be destroyed because the scrap value of old cars has decreased.

“Here it’s a junkyard and not a neighborhood; out there they’re neighborhoods and not junkyards,” Kroeker said, as the forlorn shell of what was once a Volkswagen Bug was carted to the Pick Your Part junkyard crusher. “We don’t want them looking the same.”