Long Beach use to be a great place to live years ago, but not anymore. If you don't have to come here, don't. They once had a great police dept and you could depend on the police to be there and help when you needed it, but now you can't even walk or drive down the street without getting pulled over for nothing and hasseling you. Why don't they go after the real criminals and get them off the streets, so we van live a little safer?

What I find amazing is that the incident happened on September 19th, yet the police waited until October 24th to ask for help from the public in identifying the attackers. Would anyone even remember the incident after that long of a time?

Eee gads, 5,6,7 msp's, I apologize guys, I was multi- tasking and I became hooked on Secretaries, and then spell check years back. I find it very hard to work or proof in this tiny tiny box too, and have a cut and paste glitch here...sorry.

Andy, I think that we have to unfortunately say something about all of the officers that seem to cluster in front of 2 or 3 of the clubs down there on Pine. This may be giving these, pardon me, '' wretched assholes'' the wrong impression at times . Fair or not, it seems that much of their time gets spent chatting to the babes or eachother , 2,3,4 or 5 at a time, or laughing into their cell phones, so the bad guys simply play off of these distractions, and go around the corner to ' Hunt ' nice folks like you a block or two away ? . I have seen it more than once, and it happens as fast as their flight from the scene ! Shouldn't these clubs hire more security for their patrons and free up more cops to patrol too ?

A lot of people say this so don't bother trying to pound me about this, this is merely a concerned and hopeful productivity suggestion to a watch commander or supervisor or two, I suppose. Please don't tell us we need to merely throw more money at the problem alone.

Many of us, including retired cops, have long wished that more of the assssigned Officers would simply invest the ''shoe leather'' to the pound the beat, block by block , old school , in the proven way that kept downtown safe enough for many many decades . Community based policing is great but it is not the same as knowing that there are officers fanned out, claiming certain turf predictably. visably and conspicuously, sector by sector. These same folks also say, why not bring back F.I. cards ?(Field Investigation) I have no problem wwith the PD questioning and I.D.ing people based upon suspicion in problem areas? It still works elsewhere ?

When I was young thumper down there, a group of 5 of us always got 'rousted' by the cops, and I am thankful that it kept us more 'on our toes'. I hope that these 5 reprehensible bastards left a few clues that soon betray them to County Jail and all of it's ....ahh.......''.rehabilitaion''.

We have been down there with retired Commanders or other high ranked retirees that say we need to at least fan out these assets and have them stay deployed on a broader patrol. Especially West, and North ? At times it seems like they end up accidently looking like a security detail assigned to a few quasi - V.I.P.s at certain clubs ? That may make certain businessmen or patrons feel a bit safer but so much of the rest of the area often appears barely patrolled?

A stun gun and pepper spray might help you feel less violated for a while too. Hell, put one of those big old foot and a half tall moose and bear mace fogger spray canisters in the wife's purse for next time ? ( I'll pay for that video ) Use it like RAID roach spray. Walk away saying.. 'No charge for the cologne'

As a teen, as the beat cops and call boxes went away, and crime grew, we actually carried chains, brass knuckles, a roll of dimes, switchblades, etc...downtown, ....LOL. to fill the gap. All of us took Boxing and Martial Arts too. We did this only for self defense, the defense of others or the defense of property , but a lot of us can relate to how you feel.. We were kind of forced to do this based upon recent tensions, or crimes, rumors, etc, or when going to and from the Pike, school, work, etc, from the Washington HS area. We also travelled in groups of 5 to 9 or 10 along the bus routes going to and from North LB. . I too, hoped that this was improving.

Did you get to hold up your cell and say ''911 has been called and is in route'' or anything ? My head is always on a swivel down there, were you watching your back or did they 'clean' jump you with perfect surprise ? That is a terrible feeling. Sorry again.

Recalling back then also reminded me that certain 'assholes' would only play 5 on 1, or 6 on 2 and that remains a pathetically weak rat pack mentality today , I guess. But because of that, some of us from time to time , just carry protection for our loved one's and self . It is imcumbent on a lot of us to remind some of them of this from time to time too. At night, many friends seem to feel safer in groups of 2 or 3 couples too ? Maybe this will help you guys next time ?

It is so sad to forward the suggestion I have heard since the early 60's......move as East as you can, even if it means less house . This sadness is compounded when those old friends in District 2,3,4 or 5 get a gut full , and then jump to Seal, and then Huntington, the O.C.., you know.

For me, renting my home might be soon too. It just finally touched me while walking towards the water on Pine a while back, and seeing a disgustingly ugly Gantry Crane where the ocean, a fresh breeze and a view of Catalina used to be ! What an embarrassment to how well thought out and nice this town used to be ! And what a fitting tribute to the moron's ruining it blunder by blunder ?? Some of us get so frustrated that we want to pay for road signs welcoming you to 'The Worst Air In America'', for example

For now, we are standing our ground to fight....(unfortunately....at times..LOL).

And we need your help, and that of anyone else willing to get involved, and make a difference...gratis.....so hang in there.

I also can't help but wonder why first funding a few more Officers for this area and others isn't more important than all the goodies in measure 'I' ?

The Mayor , who we still want to love, campaigned promising no new taxes and 100 new cops. Good idea ! What happened ?

But then again, so did the ever less popular, one term Gary DeRong ?

To better times Andy.


.

GoodGovt4: Your personal memories of days gone by have a lot of value and offer much needed perspective.

I would encourage you to also remember that local law enforcement assets are deployed as the community that they serve ultimately dictates. In Long Beach, for example, we do, indeed, deploy officers to assigned beats or “sectors” as you put it. The additional officers you see assigned to Pine are just that, additional officers, whose assigned beat is, in fact, Pine, and who were assigned there in direct response to the problems that a developing Pine Ave ultimately generated.

In other words, as the local community insisted.

But we only have so many cops. Those that you see working on Pine are, necessarily, not working somewhere else where perhaps they may be more greatly needed.

Should more Beat cops step out of their cars more often and start walking the Beat again? Probably. But the trade off to that approach is to limit their mobility and to increase their response time to calls in their Beats that are not in the immediate area in which they are walking. This is why we started putting them in cars in the first place, again, as the local community insisted.

The Blue Line has obvious impacts in Long Beach, positive and negative. LASD has the law enforcement contract for the Blue Line and is as responsive as they can be to these “overflow” issues within our city but ultimately the city is ours, not theirs and thus, the responsibility for these overflow issues rests with us. The presence of the Blue Line downtown was also a contributing factor in assigning additional officers to Pine.

FI (field Interview) cards still exist in Long Beach and are still used as a valuable law enforcement tool. It could very well be (and I would opine that it is quite likely) that one or more of the thugs that robbed Andy and his wife have prior arrest or citation records or have had prior contact with the police that has been documented on an FI card. The Detective working Andy’s case is no doubt researching these possibilities as we speak.

Our Chief of Police, Dr. Tony Batts, is a very good man. He lives in this city and has spent his entire sworn law enforcement career on our streets, including Pine and the area immediately surrounding it. He has full discretion on how he deploys his officers, but his resources are not infinite. As you know, personnel and equipment costs money. Our Chief, like all other City Department heads, has only those funds to work with that the Council and the City Manager grant to him. By every objective measure he has been doing a great job…our crime rate has been trending downward consistently for over a decade.

As mentioned, however, this can be no comfort to Andy and his wife, or to anyone else who is victimized…who find themselves on the “Crimes Occurred” side of that ledger. Crime is down, but, because man is by nature evil, crime persists and always shall. The sad fact is that our cops cannot be everywhere at once.

Would that they could.

But if they were…if we had sufficient cops to assign one to every street in the city for instance…most crimes that occur in public places would be all but erased and many residents would then complain that we had too many officers and that their extremely costly deployment on every street was not supported by the crime rate. Funding would be cut, the number of cops would decrease, Beats would enlarge and we would have to put our cops in cars to cover their Beats more efficiently.

Sound familiar?

It’s a very tough balance for a local police department with limited resources to strike and to maintain. Our cops do a lot of good pro-active work in this city every day and every night, but they cannot possibly be everywhere and prevent every single crime, every single time.

Unfortunately, Andy and his wife recently had to learn that personally and painfully.

Again, Andy and Mrs. Andy, my sincerest regrets for that.

Dear John_B,
Thank you kindly for another fine essay and for being a true asset to a community that many of us care for deeply. The thrust of our observations are mainly due to our disciplined, strict, business only, work -a -holic upbringing, I suppose..

When I am downtown, besides fond memories of visiting Grandma at the Police Station, and Dad and his staff at old and new city hall , boxing at the PCC and Seaside Gym, an Ocean with waves and clean water, and more, But I also recall a Summer job on the West side as a production machinist at age 13 and 14 .

We worked 10 , sweaty , itchy hours, no talking, no stopping , no A/C, no phone, one 10 minute break mid morning, a 30 minute lunch which meant no time to grab anything, a bag lunch or the roach coach, and a final 10 minutes in the afternoon. No bathroom, no drinks, no snacks, smoking, you remember. My concerns echo those of others with an eye towards busting your hump, productivity, effective use of time, and bang for the buck I suppose. Private sector stuff for sure, but that was how Dad rose in City Hall too., and then with us in the private sector.. He also worked until age 72 though he didn't need to.

Clearly, some rookies....you know...are rookies , which can make many dedicated professionals look a little bad, in some small way. But , over and over, you hear a lot of people who think, for example, that allowing officers to carry cell phones at times distracts them from gathering Probable Cause or investigating ?.. They have radios for business, and computers. Some of recall when a call box got the job fairly well done ?

But I am old school at times I suppose, clearly , because me and many friends think that Police and Fire , Department heads, and others, should still be required to live in the City. My Pa rose to being a big boss from starting deep in North Town, where I was born. Mom worked at the water department. They waited 9 years to start a family to save for a down payment. You can start with an Apartment and then a modest, small home around here, despite prior protestations. That used to really help transition neighborhoods ?

Please allow me to Irespond further , later because I am truly not trying to be hyper critical . But for clarity, some of my best friends are on this or that force. I also kind of held my home open as a sub station for many years too. 3 generations with the POA , but most importantly, absolute respect, pride and confidence in our Chief. I have hugged him . I was directing an inquiry to lower management, i.e., supervisors, commanders.

We have owned restaurants and bars too. If each vendor paid for 3 or 4 security guys out front, we kind of thought that this could help our valuable PD assets patrol more. . Clearly it is not easy . I spent years coming and going from St. Mary's late at night, and you see a lot. I have business in many venues too.

Times are tough, and it sets a good example for all of us too work as hard as we can.

My retired Police friends also say more, or bigger sub-stations are another productivity killer, any thoughts ? For example, some say that the East station is too small to change clothes in ? Then others reply, '' We all dress for work before we hit the door ?'' and wait to hit the shower when we get home ?

And my retired Captain neighbor thinks that his retirement check is so high, that he donates a ton of it to local charity ?

Thanks Again , JB .

Less do our part to try to build a better Long Beach, in some small way, again, soon.

And keep as many Andy's around as possible

You need both. More officers and Measure I are desperately needed. The better a place looks the less crime. See NYC. Broken windows... YES ON I.

As an aside, I'll bet you a $5 dinner that DeLong gets elected again. He's been very responsive to the 3rd district and I think it's a small vocal minority that doesn't like him. Just my opinion. We'll see I guess.

Dear Res, thanks just the same for the offer...LOL.... but buy DoRong dinner, for a miserable 5 bones, out of a vending machine ? or... Maybe a 'Roach Coach' ? This gaff kind of goes to how far out of touch you can be.

But FYI, ' King Gary' celebrates at Tantalum, which we hear is owned by some of the guys who basically 'hired' him to do the bidding of the connected few ? Thus our boycott of that venue.

And recall that in his first major test in office, after the worst attendance record, was when he turned a blind eye to Democracy, and ignored a vast majority of 5,700 petition signatures, plus another 2,500 in an EIR , to side with Home Depot's consultant and her...'Influence peddlers', and ...500 signatures ? Since then, he has persisted in trying to develop in, on, and around our Wetlands......and a whole lot more that you will be hearing about.

If you think he is popular, get away from the golf course, the chamber, the yacht club , and a few 'close to gone' PT editors, and start asking what people really think about him in the entire district , daily, like we have for 2 years . By far and away the highest negatives I have seen in nearly 4 decades , in and out of City Hall ?

Count the broken promises, the inside dealing, and an about 7 or 8 out of 10 negative opinion, upon a range of issues , and, well, we shall see.

Stay tuned, it's going to get interesting.

Also, as one more of many examples, please go onto the Chamber website and read his 2006 campaign pledge to 'Never increase any tax or fee upon business or residents''.

Better yet, read his divorce filings from wife one, and all the claims and allegations of ..........? Uh huh, will the real ''G.D.'' please stand up? Do some more homework Res.

Get away from the golf course , yacht club, and Chamber? Who do you think is his constituency? There is a pretty strong correlation between 3rd district residents and members of the above orgs.

You may be right though. I could be living in a bubble.

The police need to start focussing on the small crimes (jaywalking, littering, smoking where it isn't permitted, etc.) We need to send a message that the law matters. New York did this and it cleaned up the city.

Additionally there finally needs to be a strategy to deal with the blue line element that gets shipped in. We've got enough home grown element. We don't need to import more.

Of course the liberals of our city will say this is not the way to approach crime downtown and so we'll continue see problems.

I don't live downtown but I sure wish it was a place to visit with my children. Sadly it isn't and it won't be until we get serious about the thugs.

what do you mean by "the blue element" spell it out for me.

ie the thugs that arrive in our city via the blue line. People who are more focussed on causing trouble than spending money at local establishments. People I'd rather not see when I'm walking to my car after dinner with my wife and child. Now go ahead, accuse of being all sorts of terrible things.

clearly theres no need for me to accuse you of anything. i'm just going to make a suggestion, idaho.

There are plenty of cities without thugs. But keep that perspective and continue to see Pine struggle.

I've been known to jaywalk on occasion. I really don't think the police need to be hassling a person like myself.

I'm glad to hear you're okay. I must say I find this scary as I often walk this very area, and often alone! I've become comfortable and actually don't think of the area as being unsafe. Thanks for the reminder to be cautious.

My sincerest thanks for all the kind words here.

Long Beach has some great folks, neighborhoods, and potential. My wife, upon moving here from Hollywood to join me, marvelled how folks actually spoke to each other here.

When our house was broken into last year, we were very lucky that no one was hurt and we were lucky last week when I got away with just a punch in the face. With my wife's safety in question, I can't wait until our luck runs out.

I moved to Long Beach 11 years ago because the downtown area was a east-coast style city that was showing promise as a resurgent area with a developing arts district. An urban environment brings inherent risks, but generally great rewards in terms of accessibility and opportunities. I just don't see that LB has the vision necessary to create the latter anymore, despite citizen participation and input. From what I read in the P-T today, most shop owners on Pine would agree.

Again, thank you all for your best wishes.

Andy, that's terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that. I really hope you and your wife are okay. Best wishes to you both. Theo

Very sorry to hear about this deal. I hope that you guys are OK and that this town does not lose another one of the 'good guys'.

My wife and I were victims of robbery and assault last night by 5 cowards roaming the area west of Pine Street. It's just too much. I'd hoped that downtown would be getting better, but it's not. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, that wrong place is near my home.

Look for a "for sale" sign soon.

aww jeez andy that sucks!, hope you guys are ok.

Andy: My sincere regrets for the robbery you recently experienced in the downtown area.

I can only hope you and your wife were not seriously harmed and that any of the officers that responded did everything they could to assist you both and to further an appropriate investigation.

Reports of decreasing crime rates don't have a lot of meaning to those, like yourself, who have been victimized and I can only hope this crime has not soured you completely on continuing to reside in Long Beach.

This *is* a great city, Andy but clearly we still have a lot of work to do to make and keep it still greater and, more importantly, safer for all good people like yourselves.

God Bless.

Um, no, it's not that bad downtown. It's just like any downtown in the United States. That being said, I do think they should install lots of lights and video cameras downtown and let Long Beach be known as a "serious on crime" city. From what I can tell, there's plenty of crime here, but every trial ends in serious jail time so it's just a matter of time (hopefully) that the thugs will move on to an easier target.

Wild horse couldn't drag me downtown after dark as a pedestrian; its barely safe to drive through that cesspool at night. The thug element has been allowed to run the streets of Long Beach for far too long. Try watching COPS on TV when they are in Las Vegas and see how it should be done. Taking down the breakwater will only help if it allows a tsunami to roll into downtown and wash that "golden dropping" out to sea.