The night started off easy enough, we went on patrol through the area — mostly between 98th Street and 108th Street from the 110 freeway over to Alameda Street — which covers part of Watts, several housing projects, Gardena and South Gate.
The first thing that Sergeant Segee told us about were which gangs inhabited the area. The two major gangs were the Grape Street Crips and the Fudge Town Mafia Crips. The gangs are located within blocks of each other and there is a lot of tension between the groups. They both are heavily involved in drug selling and using, as well as gun fights and domestic issues. They have inhabited the housing projects and the surrounding private homes.
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| Grape Street Crips — From streetgangs.com |
Aside from gang-on-gang violence, Segee said that they often see innocent people killed by the gangs. He remembers one case where a man was throwing a birthday party for his 18-year-old daughter. Gang members invited themselves to the party and started get rowdy. The father of the birthday girl asked the gang members to stop throwing up their gang signs and associating the house with their gang. They shot him dead at his daughter's 18th birthday party.
Another shocking thing was that children get started in gang activity as young as 8 or 9 because they don't know any better and don't have any role models or parental figures that can take care of themselves. Segee says that the best way to stop gang proliferation would be to find some way to educate the children about a different way of life.
It was so sad to see children in this part of town. They just sat out on the sidewalk or on their porches watching people drive around or gang members walking by. They have nothing better to do and so they start to associate themselves with that activity. When we drove by in a cop car they just stared at us — everyone just stared.
Backup requested
The first call that we went on was a backup call. We were driving through the Jordan Downs projects when we got an officer requesting backup call on the radio. That means that someone is attacking them or resisting arrest and so every cop in the area comes as quickly as they can. We were only a couple blocks away and were one of the first to show up. Within 3 minutes there were 10 cop cars, with more than 15 officers, sergeants and even the division captain.
There had been a dispute with a man and a woman after the woman found a child wandering the streets. The man tried to take the child away from the woman without identifying himself and she called the police. It turned out that the man was supposedly the child's older brother. However, because he resisted arrest and was uncooperative, the officers had to do a pretty intensive investigation. We left before it was resolved.
Not from around here
Another thing that the officers of the Southeast division have to look for is people who do not belong in the area. If they don't live around there, it usually means that they are there to buy or sell narcotics — and the popular ones in that area are cocaine and PCP.
Officers had found a man doing meth behind a building on 103rd Street. After questioning him they found a house that was dealing, but they couldn't do anything without a search warrant. However, they soon saw an Armenian man driving around in a nice shiny white Mercedes. He was stopped and they searched his car.
They didn't find any actual drugs, but he had scales in his trunk and a bunch of empty boxes that we claimed were part of his business card business and that he had been there selling business cards. His story didn't quite match up and he kept changing it. But there was nothing the officers could do, so the narcotics detectives took his information and then let him go.
Prostitutes
Something else that amazed me was that amount of prostitutes in the area. They are all over the place up and down Figueroa Street. They even tell the cops how much they charge, what they are doing and whether or not men are roughing them up or shaking them down for their money. However, the one thing that they won't do is give up their pimp because they are more scared of the pimp than the police.
I couldn't believe that they were so out in the open. I honestly thought that prostitution on the street was a thing of the movies and that real prostitutes were in nasty brothels, hidden away from the general public and especially the police.
Search warrant
The excitement of the night was when we got to watch a search warrant being served at a crack house — a house that was dealing rock cocaine. The narcotics officers from earlier in the night had some intel on this house from tips and surveillance. So they served the warrant and searched the house. They found the dealer and a woman hiding in a closet — who the presume is also a prostitute.
After they had detained the suspects and searched the house with a drug dog, they let us have a look through. It was mind-blowing. The house was bare to the bone. There were just two beds, a couch and a TV, some basic furniture and a pile of clothes on the floor in one of the bedrooms. The narcotics officers said it was actually one of the cleanest crack houses they had ever seen.
We saw rock cocaine, some meth and some marijuana. What amazed me though, was that they had tagged the walls of their own house. Random nothings were written all over the walls, probably during an intoxicated state.
And the best part of all, was that in the "master bedroom" was a sign that said: "Change your habits, change your life." Considering that the inhabitants were all in handcuffs about to go to jail, I'm not so sure that worked out for them.
What can journalists do better?
One of my personal goals with the ride-along was not only to get a feel for the area and the issues, but to also talk to the officers to find out what they thought journalists as a whole could do better. Here is what they said:
- They often put personal bias toward an issue into their story
- They twist a story so that it is interesting, when in reality it is not a big story
- They only come when bad things happen but don't look at the good we do
- Advice to keep your word, if you honor off-the-record promises then you can get a core group of cops who are willing to work with you
- Be willing to earn the trust, it doesn't come automatically
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