Catalina faces showdown over crime issue

All one has to do is look at what happen to the San Fernando Valley after it was invaded by hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens...MOSTLY LATINO. Call what you will, FACTS are FACTS. Rape, MURDER, DRUGS, GANGS, you name it...they've imported it!
They Destroyed Mexico, then come here illegally and have destroyed HALF of LA. Don't like it, take your PC and move back to where you came from ILLEGALLY!
Go Sheriff Dept. most citizens support you 1000%!

COME ON!!! Thank the LASO for their great work! City hall is afraid if the gang problem is proven true (which it is true), it will hurt tourisum...

Hummm...profiling....??? PLEASE!!!! That is a pass for anyone this is not white to be a criminal...

We have a black man as president...get over the whole racial thing...it is so 1990...

Keep up the good work LASO!!!

I think the Sheriff's Dept should back off, then see what happens. When the place gets so outa control from the lack of enforcment, hand the cop car keys over to the mayor and tell him to get things back under control. If the LASD backs off, that place will become Harbor City over night. I live in Lomita, and the only thing keeping Lomita from becoming Harbor City IS the Sheriff Dept. If we had the LAPD, God help us here.....

Big J has it right. Let the Mayor figure it out since he's so darn convinced the Sheriff is wrong. Cancel the contract and move the deputies to PV where we could use a bit more traffic enforcement. And watch Catalina devolve into a Pedro-By-The-Sea slum.

Gimme a break. Let's look at this in perspective:

Catalina, one town, Avalon, population 3,127.

Small, crowded streets so the favored mode of transportation is a golf cart.

So, are we dealing with driveby shootings from golf carts or getaway outboard motor boats? Yeah, right. And where are the escape routes? The Island Express?

Catalina does not have a gang problem and the Sheriff's department is doing a fine community of decent hardworking people a disservice by saying it does. With only one small town everyone on Catalina pretty much knows what their neighbors are doing. It's farfetched to think that enough kids in Avalon could get away with forming a gang without their parents knowing about it. And where are they going to hide after committing their heinous crime of spray painting insults to the local gendarmes? Why don't we see those high speed golf cart pursuits as the Avalon Keystone Kops chase down another drunk tourist leaving the glass bottom boat ride on local TV?

What a farce!

Maybe the deputies just want a reason to stay on Catalina...

Why don't they send those officers to San Pedro??
We need more aggressive police and the problem with gangs is here!!! Almost everyday I see teens hangin out by our apartment complex, getting high, drinking and making noise to all hours of the night.
When the police are called...they just drive by slowly and then leave.
This story upsets me.

I used to vacation in Avalon during my high school summers. That was in the 80's. I hadn't been to Avalon in years and went back a few summers ago. I was shocked at how the City had changed. The best part about it was that you could hang out at night and walk through downtown.

It's a completely different place now. I went to two different stores and was waited on by surly teenagers that could have cared less about their job or wanting to be helpful.

The Avalon of old is gone.

Here's a classic case of money blinding town leaders to a real crime problem. When money is your first and last thought, your going to make the wrong decisions everytime.
Usually, these money first kind of people don't wake up until someone in their own family has been murdered. Then they will start whining about how the LASD has not done enough.
Wake up people, your alternative is to let crime get such a foot hold in the community, that you can't get rid of it.

Don Diller wrote:

Gimme a break.
Catalina does not have a gang problem and the Sheriff's department is doing a fine community of decent hardworking people a disservice by saying it does.
What a farce!

OK Diller, keep your head in the sand. The issue is burglaries, vandalism and drugs, not bank robberies where you need to make a quick escape. Some of the smallest towns in the midwest pump out the biggest amount of teen meth-heads. Keep ignoring the problem and dissing the sheriff and your little island getaway (place is a useless tacky tourist trap anyway) is gonna feel like downtown Pedro soon enough.

The Mayor of Avalon kinda sounds like the Mayor from the movie "JAWS"......They both didn't want to have neagative publicity for fear of losing tourism dollars......

Catalina wake up. You have a law enforcement department keeping you safe. If Catalina gets one major gang crime incident then your "tourist designation" is GONE. It will take you years to get over being known as another gang infested area.

Keeping one's head in the sand solves nothing and increases problems. Does law enforcement make mistakes? Of course it does but rarely. Most of the mainland would love to have police that can point to a significant decrease in all major crimes. If you need to assess a lesser role for police then visit San Pedro, Wilmington, Carson where police are by far outnumbered.

The alternative to the excellent resources that you now have are ugly, very ugly.

Think seriously before you act. Life is full of choices. All choices have consequences some of which are short term and others long term.

Do not let beautiful Catalina become another gang infested ghetto. It can happen faster than you can imagine !

TooBad wrote:

All one has to do is look at what happen to the San Fernando Valley after it was invaded by hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens...MOSTLY LATINO. Call what you will, FACTS are FACTS. Rape, MURDER, DRUGS, GANGS, you name it...they've imported it!
They Destroyed Mexico, then come here illegally and have destroyed HALF of LA. Don't like it, take your PC and move back to where you came from ILLEGALLY!
Go Sheriff Dept. most citizens support you 1000%!

Remember my friends, our government has allowed the drugs to come in to our great country. If our government really wanted to put a stop to drugs and illegals (from all over the world not just Mexico) enterning our great country our government would have done so a long time ago!! Don't forget this is a business and keeps many people employed....from our police officers, probation officers, lawyers, judges and everybody in between. If it wasn't for the "illegal" mexicans who are paid CHEAP labor....who would do all the labor, fruit picking and construction, for cheap?! Not to meation all the rich republicans in orange county who hire nanny's...what a bunch of hypocrite!

Have you ALL noticed the MEXICANS are the new Blacks!!

Take your issues to coporate america too!

Civic Minded wrote:

<quoted text>
OK Diller, keep your head in the sand. The issue is burglaries, vandalism and drugs, not bank robberies where you need to make a quick escape. Some of the smallest towns in the midwest pump out the biggest amount of teen meth-heads. Keep ignoring the problem and dissing the sheriff and your little island getaway (place is a useless tacky tourist trap anyway) is gonna feel like downtown Pedro soon enough.

Of course, it is only a "useless tacky tourist trap" (no commas?) if you don't consider the USC Marine Science Center at Big Fisherman's Cove which has world class scientists doing essential medical, environmental and ocean research or the USGS work on the island or the old Wrigley mansion on the hill which is used for some very necessary scientific symposiums. The fact is that Catalina is a unique place that has NEVER needed the heavy-handed law enforcement techniques used on the mainland. I used to spend a lot of time with the deputies assigned to the Isthmus and that was their big fear--that the LASO would blow things out of perspective. I spent years as an undergrad and grad student on the island and return there often. Sure there is always some problems with teens EVERYWHERE (I have gone through five of them as a father) but law enforcement is just ludicrous in its demonization of what many of us stupidly did as teens. Further, teens that truly really need help and attention are marked for life by the rediculous attitude forced on law enforcement and the courts by adults who are the root cause of their own childrens' law breaking. The LASO is totally inflating the crime numbers according to many friends on the island, probably looking for more money. Ya' know, other places in the world don't have the problems that the cold and heartless South Bay (or "Beach Cities" or whatever they call it now) have. Catalina certainly still doesn't have a big "crime problem".

I was at Two Harbors Back in the Firt Weekend in October For Bucanner Days Just like the year before a group of little gang banggers from avalon showed up over there and started stealing stuff from peoples tents. AVALON MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL ARE BLIND OR JUST DON'T WANT TO RELIZE THAT THEY HAVE A PROBLEM!

Gang problem? No, not anywhere near what we have on the mainland. However, the problem of rowdy teenagers and thugs goes back to the early 80s. The kids get bored easily, don't have enough parental supervision and get into fights with other kids visiting for the weekend. I visit Catalina 3-6 times a year and try to minimize my time in Avalon. But the Isthmus is not much better. Many of the campers are mainlanders and behaive like thugs and dress like gangsters. In my experience the public drunkeness is negligible in Avalon, but prevalent at Two Harbors. Neither place is where I like to spend time with my kids. I prefer anchoring in smaller coves with less riff-raff. Santa Cruz island is much better, perhaps because there are no bars and low life teenagers. AP's description of Avalon as gang infested is exagerated, and resources could be better spent elsewhere. The mayor's claim that all Avalon teenagers are great kids is simply untrue. Most probably are, but too many are jerks and have kept me from spending money in Avalon for 25 years.

LIVE WITH IT wrote:

<quoted text>

Have you ALL noticed the MEXICANS are the new Blacks!

I was following you for a minute there. Mexicans are the new blacks, wassup with that!!??

West End sailor wrote:

Gang problem? No, not anywhere near what we have on the mainland. However, the problem of rowdy teenagers and thugs goes back to the early 80s. The kids get bored easily, don't have enough parental supervision and get into fights with other kids visiting for the weekend. I visit Catalina 3-6 times a year and try to minimize my time in Avalon. But the Isthmus is not much better. Many of the campers are mainlanders and behaive like thugs and dress like gangsters. In my experience the public drunkeness is negligible in Avalon, but prevalent at Two Harbors. Neither place is where I like to spend time with my kids. I prefer anchoring in smaller coves with less riff-raff. Santa Cruz island is much better, perhaps because there are no bars and low life teenagers. AP's description of Avalon as gang infested is exagerated, and resources could be better spent elsewhere. The mayor's claim that all Avalon teenagers are great kids is simply untrue. Most probably are, but too many are jerks and have kept me from spending money in Avalon for 25 years.

That is a pretty darn good assessment of Catalina. I have to say that the alcohol problem in Two Harbors is definitely bad, but it is the adults who scare me there. In all my years out there I have towed drunks in on boats big and small that would have ended up face down in the waters of Newport had we not helped them. It is the tourists that are the biggest problem throughout most of Catalina.

way too much "he said, he said" in this story. dig up the facts instead of speculation and never let a source justify their behavior without providing some sort of evidence to back it up. good effort, though.

catalina of old is gone just like lomita pch is a disgrace the town square where everyone would meet at night is not where id hang out my
young neice was robbed of csmera and money when she went to catalina, they have areas where it looks scary not like the old days.