FOUR SLAYINGS HIGHLIGHT COMMUNITY'S WOES.

Byline: Josh Kleinbaum Staff Writer

NORTH HILLS - The tempest that is the east side of North Hills and the west side of Panorama City - a neighborhood where more than 10 percent of the gang-related crime in the San Fernando Valley occurs - remained quiet for two months.

No gunshot blasts echoed in the night. No fear from residents they'd be hit by a stray bullet while standing in their kitchen.

The silence shattered this month with four homicides in two weeks.

``This is not normal,'' said Los Angeles police Lt. Tom Zak, who oversees the gang and narcotics units for the area. ``This shouldn't be occurring. This shouldn't be occurring here.''

But in this small area in the northeast Valley - east of the San Diego Freeway and bound by Nordhoff Street, Woodman Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard - the violence is all too common.

Sofia Gomez, 92, was beaten to death Feb. 2 while out for an early-morning walk on Willis Avenue. Ernesta Avena, 20, was killed three days later outside a Columbus Avenue apartment complex, a gang-related shooting that police believe was a targeted hit.

Adin Godoy was shot in the head Feb. 11 in the roadway of Rayen Street, another gang-related slaying, but involving separate gangs than the Avena shooting.

The fourth victim remains unknown - his dismembered corpse was found Feb. 5 in a shopping cart in front of an apartment building on Langdon Avenue. The victim's hands, feet and head haven't been found.

``We've had spurts where we had multiple homicides in a short period of time, then a break, then another multiple homicide period,'' said Jim Freund, the LAPD's lead homicide detective in the area. ``There's no explanation. That's the way it's been for the past several months. There's nothing related, nothing we can connect.''

The problems, in part, stem from the development of the community, which boomed in the 1960s and '70s without developing social organizations to provide leaders, support and youth activities. High-density apartment buildings - some operated by slumlords with little interest in upkeep, police say - popped up next to each other on narrow streets that have become crime and gang hot spots.

The cheap housing brought low-income renters to the area, and that's been the area's main demographic for decades. More than 22 percent of residents in east North Hills and west Panorama City live below the poverty line, according to data from the 2000 Census. They're stacked in high-density housing, with anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 people per square mile.

Leaders never emerged to take responsibility for the community, said Greg Nelson, general manager of the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which has struggled to form neighborhood councils in the area.

``One of the major efforts that we've made was using the nonprofits to go out there and try to find some leaders and train them, and that effort was just disappointing,'' Nelson said. ``All that really emerged was what some people called Mayberry RFD - a lot of very, very elderly white people that kind of want Panorama City to be what it was in the '50s.''

Nelson couldn't find leaders in the community because the structures that usually produce leaders - chambers of commerce, religious organizations and the like - weren't there, he said. Those same organizations often provide activities for children, giving them an alternative to gangs.

With that absence, those gangs have flourished, bringing drugs and violence, with easy access to three freeways making dealing more efficient. And the Valley's busiest corner for trafficking lies at Columbus Avenue and Parthenia Street, police say.

About 12 percent of gang-related crime in the Valley over the past five years occurred in this small area east of the San Diego Freeway, according to LAPD statistics. Since 2001, 24 people have been killed in gang-related violence.

``There's barricades, there's drug activity, you can see people doing things in the streets,'' said Jacqueline Alikhaani, 45, a member of the steering committee of the fledgling East North Hills Neighborhood Council. ``The criminals work in groups. They're organized. We need to do the same thing.

``We just have never had a community dialogue. For some reason, we've never had that in this community.''

There have been efforts to get more people involved and erase North Hills' stigma as a gang- and crime-infested community. In May 1991, homeowners west of the San Diego Freeway successfully petitioned to have their area renamed from Sepulveda to North Hills to distinguish it from the crime-ridden east side. The east side responded by changing its name to North Hills, too, hoping the name change would help.

``The criminal element had been attached to that name for so long, people thought that changing the name could bring about change in the image of the area,'' said Alikhaani, who moved to North Hills in 1990. ``It didn't work.''

Alikhaani and others trying to form the neighborhood council hope to start a fresh dialogue. Police, meanwhile, are ratcheting up the pressure on the hoodlums. Since the four homicides, officers have conducted probation and parole searches on 26 known gang members and served five narcotics-related and six robbery-related search warrants. They seized nine guns and multiple kilos of methamphetamine and cocaine and arrested more than 30 gang members.

The crackdown hasn't just focused on gangs involved in the shootings, Zak said.

``We want to make sure rival gangs know that we're there, too,'' he said.

Despite the rash of killings, violent crime and gang violence have dropped in the area over the past five years, from 95 major gang-related crimes in 2001 to 68 in 2005. The addition of the Mission Area Community Police Station in nearby Mission Hills in 2005 helped bring more police scrutiny to the area, residents said.

In the fall, police launched a Safer Cities Initiative focusing on North Hills and Panorama City. In addition to more policing - a sergeant and eight officers on the Safer Cities team patrol the area - the plan calls for involvement from other city services to improve the neighborhood's atmosphere. The Department of Sanitation picked up litter and abandoned junk from fields and streets. A new bulky item pickup route was established through the area. The city hired a firm to remove graffiti.

The plan fits into the ``Broken Windows'' theory espoused by Chief William Bratton - that preventing minor crimes and improving the area's look will help prevent larger crime.

``The area is cleaner,'' Zak said. ``In terms of graffiti, it got better in October and November, but in December they slacked off. We had a meeting with the Mayor's Office, and now I think they get the picture.''

The reduction in crime has actually hurt the effort to police the area, though. In October, the state pulled the funding on a program known as CLEAR - Community Law Enforcement And Recovery - which provided money for two full-time probation officers working in the area and an overtime budget for officers there. The Safer Cities Initiative attempted to replace CLEAR, but it doesn't have an overtime budget or probation officers, Zak said.

Because of the reduction in violent crime, the state moved the CLEAR program to South Los Angeles. The unit left the area on Sept. 30. Two days later, the first of two gang-related shootings in a week threatened to thrust the area into a gang war.

``Someone thought they needed the money somewhere else, just at the very time we were having an up-surge in gang violence,'' said Tony Wilkinson, interim chairperson of the Panorama City Neighborhood Council. ``Whoever made that decision was months behind the facts on the street.

``Still, Panorama City is one of the undiscovered gems in the San Fernando Valley. You go down the street and people smile at you. You come to an intersection and people stop and wave at you. There are areas that are very safe.''

Josh Kleinbaum, [phone]

josh.kleinbaum(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo:

(1) Parthenia Street in North Hills is dimly lit on a Thursday night near Sepulveda Boulevard. The area has been hit this month with four homicides in two weeks.

(2) More than 22 percent of residents in east North Hills and west Panorama City live below the poverty line, according to data from the 2000 Census.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

Map:

North Hills - Homicides