Escondido Latinos, Police Plan Anti-Crime Program

Latino communities in Escondido have missed out on what much of the city has taken part in for years: Neighborhood Watch.

Distrust of people in uniforms and a lack of bilingual police officers has kept the Latino community in Escondido from participating in law enforcement programs.

But this evening, an informal meeting to create Escondido’s first Neighborhood Watch program in a predominantly Latino neighborhood might prove the first step toward bringing the groups together.

“Public trust with law enforcement hasn’t existed in the Latino community, and it is something that needs to be nurtured,” said Manuel Medrano, vice president of the Latino community organization Amigos del Valle Escondido, which is co-sponsoring the meeting.

Medrano blames the low number of bilingual officers on the Escondido police force as the main reason for the distrust but points out that the department is getting better.

“I believe that the community is ready to get involved,” he said.

In Escondido, more than a quarter of the population is Latino, but less than 12% of the 130-officer police force is Latino, said Sgt. Tom Albergo, the Police Department’s cultural awareness coordinator.

Albergo concedes that getting to the point where the Latino community and police could sit down and talk has been a long time coming.

Other communities with large Latino populations, such as San Diego and Oceanside, have had Neighborhood Watch programs in Latino communities for years.

“Traditionally, there has just been a little suspicion on the community’s part about people in law enforcement and in uniforms, and the suspicion is based on the uncertainty of what we’re all about, and perhaps on our inability to communicate too well,” Albergo said.

Tonight’s meeting, to be held at the Escondido Library at Kalmia Street and 2nd Avenue at 7 p.m., is an outgrowth of a series of town meetings last September addressing Escondido’s gangs, Medrano said.