The Pacific Palisades Community Council welcomed LAPD Captain III Vic Davalos, new commanding officer of the West LA area, who addressed the board and the community, along with officers Maria Gray (standing in for SLO Michael Moore) and Ryan Basaker, at the March 14 meeting.
“I’m honored to be working here for all of you,” Davalos said at the meeting.
In his 31 years with the LAPD, Davalos also worked the training and recruitment divisions before his current position as commanding officer.
“What that has afforded me is the opportunity to see a lot of the department and how it works, and, in some cases, frankly, how it doesn’t work.”
Davalos addressed several issues important to the community, including crime statistics, noise from motorcycle clubs, and the noise and pollution caused by gas-powered leaf blowers.
One community member shared some facts about gas-powered leaf blower pollution. According to an Edmunds study she cited, running a two-stroke gas powered blower for half an hour produces the same emissions as a six-ton truck driving for 3,887 miles.
“My commitment to you is that I will have officers out there staking out the leaf blowers,” Davalos said. “The Bureau of Street Services has primary responsibility for this issue. Nevertheless, I’m saying to all of you here we will be out there providing officers in the morning hours to address this.”
Davalos and Gray reported some statistics about crime in town.
“Last year, West LA was 21 out of 21 in terms of crime—the bottom,” Davalos said. “Today, we are number one in the reduction of violent crime, we are number nine in the reduction of property crime and we are number seven for overall reduction of ‘Part One’ crimes.
“The Pacific Palisades is doing even better than that,” Davalos continued. “That being said, we could use your help … Please secure your homes and don’t leave items in the car.”
Pacific Palisades is about 30 minutes from the LAPD West Division Bureau, making response times for officers difficult. Community members asked Davalos to reaffirm the promise past captains made to station a 24/7 patrol car in the Palisades.
“I am repeating that promise,” Davalos said. “You have my promise that they will be the last car that we send to a call. If we send them, it’s because we need them.”
Gray shared more info about crime in town.
“We’ve had five burglaries this year to date whereas this time last year we had 17,” Gray reported. “So we’re doing much better. Palisades is doing really well in terms of burglaries. But we should stay vigilant.”
According to Gray, crime is down 40 percent overall in the Palisades, with burglaries down 70 percent, burglary theft from vehicles down 47 percent and overall theft down 33 percent, with violent crime “virtually non-existent.”
“Where we have lost ground is grand theft auto, which is up again,” Gray said. “Which is from people leaving their fobs in their cars.”
Another topic at the March 14 meeting was noise caused by motorcycle clubs riding PCH and Sunset Boulevard.
“We’re aware of the problem, and it’s been an ongoing problem for years and years,” Officer Basaker explained. “Our captain came up with a street racing task force consisting of four officers that cover related problems, but they cover the whole west bureau—from Normandie Avenue all the way to the Palisades, to the 10 Freeway, all the way up to the Hollywood Hills. It’s a large area and only four officers.”
Basaker explained motorcycle club activity picks up as the weather gets warmer.
“We wait at Sunset and PCH for them to come to us, we have a little chat with quite a few of them, we write citations … ”
Basaker explained that clubs will send scouts ahead to evade police.
“They are well organized—they communicate on social media, they have helmets with Bluetooth. But we’ll continue to work that problem,” Basaker said. “It’s dangerous going after these guys. They will run from us.”
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