LOS ANGELES — After a string of high-profile crimes, including a midday strong-arm robbery of three cafe patrons, the theft of more than $10,000 worth of merchandise from a streetwear store, and the murder of a retail worker looking to break up a fight, the residents of the Melrose neighborhood are pushing back.
Just how they’re doing it is still up in the air. Ideas include an automated surveillance system, restrictions on sidewalk sales and lobbying for increased policing. Whatever they decide, they’re trying to make Melrose safe again, come hell or high water.
On Thursday morning, a handful of residents associated with the Melrose Action neighborhood watch group — which maintains a blog of major incidents within the neighborhood — met and toured the district with Los Angeles mayoral candidate and 15th District City Councilmember Joe Buscaino.
“We should not live in a city where residents or businesses or tourists feel unsafe,” Buscaino told Spectrum News. “And it's important for me as, as the public safety candidate to make sure that they're heard and share with them my plan for a safe and clean city.”
Throughout 2021, there have been an average of 105 crimes reported in the Melrose neighborhood each month, including robbery, assault, vehicle break-ins and the killing of a person trying to break up a fight outside of the shop at which he worked.
On Aug. 11, Shoe Palace employee Jayren Bradford was shot and killed when he attempted to break up an argument over a sneaker raffle. The suspected shooter, a 16 year old, was arrested by Los Angeles police the next day. Bradford, who was 26, had just moved to Los Angeles last year, according to reports.
Employees at stores across the avenue are increasingly concerned for their own safety. Manuel Alvarado, a mechanic and manager at the Spokes N Stuff bike shop, has worked on Melrose for 27 years. He’s watched as customers have grown up and brought their own children into the shop — but just last week, he was assaulted in an attempted robbery at the store.
“All of this stuff makes me really sad because these people don’t know how hard we work for this,” Manuel told Spectrum News. “I have a wife, you know. I have a family to take care of. Sometimes I don’t feel secure anymore.”
Businesses along Melrose Avenue are represented by the Melrose Arts District, a business improvement district funded in part by tax revenues that pay for projects within the area. The Melrose BID’s executive director, Don Duckworth, was in attendance for the Buscaino meeting and acted as a voice for business concerns.
“Principally, it’s the unregulated sidewalk ending that is causing a ‘broken window’ kind of environment, a circus-kind of environment where people come here and perceive that anything goes,” Duckworth told Spectrum News. “There are no rules and regulations for street vending that re enforced; LAPD has just told us that they have discontinued the effort to join with us to regulate street vending… so we’re asking for Joe’s support to regulate street ending.”
Duckworth’s belief is that unregulated sidewalk vending can be a front for drug sales or gambling — and that (in keeping with the “broken window” theory of criminal justice) that petty crimes and unkempt streets can lead to major property and violent crimes. To that, he’s hoping that Melrose can overlay a no-vending zone in the district, much like the ban on vending on Hollywood Boulevard.
Sean Wilson, who had a booth set up selling his own brand’s goods outside of Urban Outfitters on Thursday morning, wholly disagreed with Duckworth’s point of view.
“I feel if anything, it’s the opposite, because I’ve been out here and getting to know people around the community and neighborhoods,” Wilson said. “Most of us come out here, where we’re selling clothes, jewelry, art — it’s sharing love from within. I feel like we’re helping.”
Wilson said that he’s built up a relationship with the managers at the store; his friends working his booth with him, Janae Huff and Jelani Patrick, feel that they’ve been able to build positive relationships all across Melrose, and that the BID’s hopes for a sidewalk vending ban are misguided.
“It sounds like somebody wants to be more in control,” Patrick said.
“It don’t have nothing to do with crime,” Huff added. “It has to do with money.”
Cool Kicks, a sneaker resale store with two storefronts along Melrose, is among the most popular storefronts on the street. On busy weekends, a line to get in will stretch down the block, and sidewalk vendors will set up nearby to take advantage of the captive audience. On Thursday morning, a manager for the business was approached by a handful of Melrose Action members.
The manager — who requested his name not be published, as he was not cleared to speak on behalf of the store — clarified to the neighborhood watch members that his shop has nothing to do with the vendors.
“They were thinking that we had something to do with this, so that we could help control that,” the manager said. “It’s nothing against (sidewalk vendors) but we’ve done nothing but grow our business and do it the right way.”
Melrose Action member and frequent spokesperson Peter Nichols thinks that the district’s streetwear and sneaker stores might have an outsized effect on crime on Melrose.
“We all have experienced, in our generations, things that are hip, hot, and cool, and we want them — reasons to be part of the cool club. Is it fair to say that being part of the cool club today hinges on a potential drive to even commit crime? Yeah, I think there’s a claim to be made that kids are under so much pressure to fit in that they could turn to a life of crime.”
To help combat crime in the area, Nichols and Melrose Action have started raising money to purchase and privately maintain license plate reader cameras within the district, similar to those used by law enforcement agencies. LPRs scan the plates of passing vehicles and check them against a database of vehicles reported stolen.
Certain systems used by police will alert dispatchers as soon as they have confirmed hits. However, Nichols suggested that the system Melrose Action is pursuing won’t have a direct line to police and instead be “centered to the neighborhood,” with cameras installed on private property rather than public rights-of-way. (Doing so would avoid having to seek approval from the city.)
In this case, the residents would have access to the cameras and the recorded information. Their plan would be to set up on side streets, off of Melrose, in order to catch any getaway vehicles associated with crimes that are parked or escaping through the neighborhood.
At an online town hall meeting on Wednesday night, Melrose Action members asked LAPD to advise where the LPRs should best be installed. Police officers didn’t directly respond to the question.
In an email to Spectrum News, an LAPD officer noted that the department "cannot and will not endorse any particular ALPR system," though detectives "will utilize any tool that the community makes available to (police)."
LAPD did, however, note that business robberies are down by 43% from 2019 to 2021, though street robberies have increased by 40%, leading to an overall increase in robberies by 13% in the area.
Police activity has visibly increased along Melrose due to increased funding for foot patrols. At certain points on Thursday, one could see three police cars patrolling at once, as well as bicycle and on-foot patrolling. At the town hall, officers stated that robberies had increased by 18% over the previous 30 days of increased patrols, though they clarified that meant 13 robberies had occurred against 11 the month prior. Aggravated assaults fell by 20%, and burglaries fell by 53%.
That’s not to say that the area doesn’t have an outsized amount of crime. According to Spectrum News partners, Crosstown, the Fairfax neighborhood (including the Melrose district) currently has the 10th highest crime rate among Los Angeles neighborhoods — and though crime spiked in May 2020, that may easily be explained by the fact that the protests and uprisings following the killing of George Floyd centered on that Mid-City area.
Still, the neighborhood’s current crime rate is higher than many areas, including Historic South-Central, Westchester, Watts, and neighboring West Hollywood.