Griffith Park Wayist

When public safety in our City parks consists of just responding to calls and takes no proactive, preventive ownership, then violence and bloodshed will be a growing common occurrence.

Proactive ownership via community-based policing is what LA City Park Rangers used to do. The Mayor, along with SEIU and City Controller Wendy Greuel have made it their mission to eradicate City Park Rangers in favor of the Office of Public Safety - a second police force created by Greuel in the name of "efficiency" that, like LAPD for the most part, also simply answers radio calls.

Actually, OPS answer calls IF any of their units are even available.


As long as there continues to be no Park Ranger presence, yesterday's multiple murder is just another day in a Los Angeles City park.

Get used to it, folks.
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Two killed, one injured in shooting at Venice park

Police say they believe Wednesday afternoon's fatal shooting at Venice's Penmar Recreation Center was gang-related.

Los Angeles Police detectives, standing near a shooting victim, investigate the attack at Penmar Recreation Center in Venice. Two people were killed and another was injured in the shooting. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2011)

By Robert J. Lopez and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

June 23, 2011

A gunman calmly shot three people, two of them fatally, as a woman fled with a small child in her arms and others scrambled for safety Wednesday afternoon at a Venice park, according to police and an eyewitness.

The shooting forced authorities to lock down a recreation center filled with small children at Penmar park, which sits in a quiet neighborhood lined with single-family homes and shady trees in the 1300 block of East Lake Street.

"I heard popping sounds," the witness told The Times, "and I saw a guy standing and shooting a gun."

The witness said the attacker jumped into a car, perhaps a silver Volkswagen station wagon, in which a driver was waiting and fled.

A baseball coach gave CPR to a victim sprawled on the grass between the recreation center and a baseball diamond, the witness said. A second bystander administered CPR to a man lying in the bleachers.

The children in the recreation center, the oldest of whom were in third grade, were reunited with their parents at the center, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Jeff Bert.

Bert said investigators believe the shooting was gang-related. Officers found several shell casings in the area.

The third victim, police said, was shot in the leg and was being treated at a hospital. The two dead men were believed to be between 18 and 20 years old, police said.

One of the victims was pronounced dead at the park. The other died at a nearby hospital.

robert.lopez@latimes.com
andrew.blankstein@latimes.com