Surf City still safe?

Jose Paul Corona

The same city that boasted no murders in the past two years has

now seen three fatal shootings and one near-fatal shooting in the

same neighborhood in the past six months. All three brutal deaths are

believed to be gang related, police said.

While this 300% jump in the murder rate may be alarming to

Huntington Beach residents, police say it does not indicate a rise in

crime in Surf City.

“It’s an anomaly, it really is,” said Huntington Beach Police

Department Lt. JB Hume, who is charge of the gang unit that patrols

the Oakview neighborhood where all four young men were shot.

Murders rock a city

Shock enveloped the city when Oscar Gaytan, 18 and Heriberto Tapia

Vasquez, 16, were murdered in the early morning hours of May 11 in

the Oakview neighborhood.

The killings broke the city’s nearly three-year streak without a

homicide. They were the first since the murder of Bridgette Ballas, a

29-year-old Calvin Klein account executive, who was found raped and

bludgeoned to death on Nov. 27, 1999. Police arrested 23-year-old

Victor Miranda-Guerrero for that crime.

Although the person responsible for the brutal slayings of Gaytan

and Vasquez has yet to be caught, police have identified a suspect

and issued a no bail arrest warrant for Juan Jose Meza on June 26.

Police feel that it is only a matter of time before he is caught.

On May 28 another young boy, this time a minor, was critically

wounded when he was shot in the chest in an intersection of that same

neighborhood. Witnesses reported seeing a maroon Cadillac driving

westbound on Warner Avenue after the shooting, police said.

Then, on July 29, 19-year-old Ernest Duarte was found shot to

death in an alley in the Oakview neighborhood. Police thought, this

too, was gang related and said they believed that Duarte was in a

gang.

While the investigation into his death is still ongoing police are

no longer sure that it was gang related, Hume said.

“It may not be gang related, we have not been able to prove that

it’s gang related,” Hume said. “If it was gang related it would be

obvious.”

Crime on the decline

Despite these horrific shootings, police contend that gang

activity and crime are not on the rise. In fact, Hume says, crime

rates have dropped.

“Overall, crime, with the exception of the murders, has gone down

steadily for the past three years,” he said. “Across the board,

either [crime] is the same or it’s down.”

Police are not the only ones who seem unconcerned about the rising

murder rate.

“I would tend to agree with [police],” Councilwoman Shirley

Dettloff said. “I think that they were isolated incidents.”

Experts in gang activity at UC Irvine also agree with police.

Cheryl Maxson, a professor of criminology, law and society at UCI

said that a rise in murders is not indicative of a pattern.

“Four is a very small number,” she said. “Typically I caution

people not to make a trend out of it.”

Gang homicide studies conducted in larger cities with a bigger

gang presence indicate that gang murders are not particularly planned

and they generally don’t have anything to do with gang issues, Maxson

said. Ronald Huff, a professor of Criminology, Law and Society and

dean of UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology agreed with Maxson’s

assessment.

“Just because gang members are involved, doesn’t mean it’s gang

motivated,” he said. “[And] just because we have unfortunate tragic

incidents doesn’t mean that there’s a trend.”

People only need to look at the stock market to see that there can

be significant kinds of swings in patterns. This is particularly true

in Huntington Beach since the city doesn’t have a large gang

population or problem, he added.

Dettloff, who is also a member of the Oakview Task Force, believes

it is important to continue to reach out to members of the Oakview

area so that these types of crimes don’t occur again.

And gang prevention programs are key to the area, she said.

Bill Flower, superintendent of recreation and human services for

the city, oversees the Oakview Community Center. He said that while

these types of crimes have an impact on the neighborhood, he hasn’t

gotten any calls from residents regarding the murders.

A strong presence

Hume attributes the decline in crime he cited, in part, to the

Neighborhood Enhancement Team, which is made up of six officers whose

primary job is to patrol areas that have received city and federal

funds, such as the Oakview neighborhood.

The team handles about 90% of the calls related to the Oakview

area, said team Officer Art Preece.

They are on constant patrol of the area and are there to make

their presence felt, Hume said.

The officers said their daily presence in the area has made

residents feel more at ease speaking with them.

“That relationship I have with them is very valuable,” Preece

said.

That was evident on a recent patrol of the neighborhood when area

residents waved at him as he drove by and others called out his name

when they saw him.

Not only do Oakview area residents recognize Preece, but he

recognizes them. As he patrols the neighborhood he points to

different people and gives a little bit of background on them.

He knows if they are gang members and what gangs they belong to.

He can name siblings and parents and knows who’s in jail and who just

got out.

He also knows who he can go to for help if he needs it. It’s

obvious that he likes his job.

“I try to deal with [gang members] as civilly as possible,” he

said.

He deals with them on an ongoing basis and that’s the best way to

approach the relationship. They know he has a job to do and even

though they may not like it sometimes, they seem to respect him.

The majority of those living in Oakview are hard working people

just trying to get by, he said, and most of the kids aren’t bad.

“There are some good hearted kids and then some that aren’t good

hearted kids, that’s the best way to put it,” he said.

* JOSE PAUL CORONA covers City Hall and education. He can be

reached at (714) 965-7173 or by e-mail at jose.corona@latimes.com.