Residents Call for Crackdown on Gangs Along Hollywood Blvd.

Joe Shea would like to see Hollywood Boulevard cleared of gang members who cruise the sidewalks and streets, blocking traffic and often committing crimes. Unfortunately, though, it has been the gang members doing the clearing lately.

Shea, president of the Ivar Hill Community Assn. and member of a local police advisory group, was walking on Hollywood near Highland Avenue a week ago Sunday when, he said, he was attacked by a group of teen-agers strolling down the sidewalk. Shea said he escaped by darting into stalled traffic, but not before the youths--whom he recognized as local gang members--struck him several times.

“I guess something scared them because they took off running down Highland,” Shea said. Nevertheless, “it’s been kind of scary down there the past couple of weekends.”

Indeed, gang cruising--a perennial problem along a world-famous 10- to 15-block stretch of the boulevard--has lately shown signs of becoming worse than ever, residents and business owners say. Some would like to see the partial police barricades that are erected weekend nights replaced by a total blockade of the thoroughfare then.

Gang members have been walking in groups along sidewalks, intimidating passers-by, residents said.

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On the street, the cruisers not only tie up traffic, but have been linked by residents and community activists to other ills such as prostitution, drug trafficking and violent crime. Classified police reports recently reviewed by The Times showed that the area around Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street tops the entire western part of the city in aggravated assaults, robberies and rapes.

Early Sunday morning, Los Angeles resident Mario Vasquez, 17, was killed at Hollywood Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue in what police believe was a shooting related to gang cruising.

Shea said gang shootings near Hollywood and Highland are relatively common on weekend nights, when congestion is the worst.

The latest violence has come despite numerous community efforts to curb cruising, including a year-old barricade program. City Department of Transportation and Police Department officers typically block one lane of Hollywood Boulevard to control traffic, making it easier for authorities to check vehicles for violations.

But the nocturnal mix of tourists, residents and gang members, many of whom motor in from other parts of the city, has made for an overwhelming exercise in traffic control, police say.

“A lot of cruisers go (to Hollywood Boulevard), people from all over the state,” said Detective Kevin Rogers of the LAPD’s West Bureau CRASH anti-gang unit. “You’ve got just hundreds and hundreds of cars, which drive back and forth hundreds and hundreds of times.”

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As a result, residents are reviving calls for a total street blockade, perhaps from Vine to La Brea Avenue, on weekend nights. They complain that gang members are drawn by Hollywood’s anything-goes reputation and criminal underground.

Robert Nudelman, a longtime community activist, said: “All the other communities--Whittier, Broadway, Elysian Park--have banned cruising, and Hollywood has become the dumping ground.”

Several activists and residents said they have asked Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg to address cruising problems on the boulevard. She could not be reached for comment.

In the late 1980s, a blockade was in effect on the boulevard but was dropped after complaints from merchants that it kept tourists away, said Chris Baumgart, a board member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and an architect of the barricade program.

But there is evidence that the current situation is not helping business either.

Last month, the Arby’s restaurant near Hollywood and Highland closed, and company officials cited crime as a contributing factor.

“It used to be anyone who came to L.A. wanted to go to Hollywood Boulevard,” said William Brusslan, president of the KFF Management Co. in Sherman Oaks, Arby’s franchising agency. “But not anymore. I think people are afraid to walk down the boulevard.”