Going It Alone in the Ghetto

By Jon D. Hull/Los Angeles

Nobody fears urban crime more than the urban poor. In Watts and other rough neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, residents are terrorized daily by gangs and gunfire, living in a virtual war zone where murder is the leading cause of death among young men. Since 1981 residents have twice voted for higher taxes to pay for more police officers, but each time the citywide referendum was defeated by voters in the more affluent and better-policed areas of Los Angeles.

Now the ghetto may decide to go it alone. Local activists have proposed a $21 million property tax levied against South Central residents to pay for 300 additional city police officers. If the measure passes this June, it will mark the first time that residents within a section of any major U.S. city have taxed themselves to pay for more police for their own neighborhood.

The proposal is the brainchild of L.A. Councilman Robert Farrell, a South Central resident who believes his area is being shortchanged by the I've-got-mine attitude that prevails in safer parts of the city. "The levels of violent crime in South Central Los Angeles are just no longer acceptable," says Farrell. "My car has been broken into, my house has been burglarized, and my wife has been robbed at gunpoint. No other members of the city council would put up with this."

If approved by two-thirds of South Central voters, the plan will create a special tax-assessment district affecting 500,000 mostly poor residents in a 43-sq.-mi. area. The 300 new officers will be assigned to the four Los Angeles police divisions that patrol South Central. Though these outposts represent only 22% of the department's 18 divisions, they handled 44% of the city's 831 homicides last year. South Central residents are so fearful that many have expressed willingness to pay the estimated $148 annual tab for the average homeowner.

Still, the proposal faces broad opposition, particularly from civil rights organizations. "We're redlining ourselves," says Raymond Johnson Jr., president of the Los Angeles N.A.A.C.P. "If this were proposed by a white councilman in Jackson, Miss., on the premise that it's black-on-black crime and blacks ought to pay for it, it would be a national outrage." Johnson and others argue that if well-to-do neighborhoods were to take the cue and vote to hire their own police, not to mention fire fighters, street cleaners and tree trimmers, they would be even more likely to oppose further citywide tax measures to benefit low-income areas.

But proponents argue that the alternative is for the poor to continue to suffer from crime. South Central leaders have fought for years against police- deployment patterns, which are based on a formula that considers property crimes roughly equal to violent crimes against people. This may please Porsche owners in Bel Air, but it does little to console the victims of shootings in Watts. The policy is under review by an outside consultant.

"We're confident that the study will provide for additional officers in the South Central area," says the N.A.A.C.P.'s Johnson, who threatens a lawsuit if the police department fails to take action. Two weeks ago, while South Central awaited the outcome, a bullet fired during a shoot-out between rival street gangs pierced the window of a Watts church and struck Choir & Member Dolores Allen in the head. Allen, 42, died the following day.