S-T Neighborhood Watch Meeting & Meeting Notes

►►SUNLAND-TUJUNGA NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH MEETING NOTES ►►November 18, 2025 ☼ In 2025's last 😩meeting of the year😭, Senior Lead Officers (SLO) Gloria Caloca (Tujunga) and Will Godoy (Sunland+Lake View Terrace) updated 9 attendees on crime stats, public safety and trends. ☼ Burglary Detective Arvin Buenaventura added his expertise and safety hints! ☼ CD7's Ricardo Flores offered updates and his anecdotes! ►►►► S-T+nearby crimes are (mostly!) down, so our attendance was a little sparse. It perks up when there's an issue! ...Or was everybody else shopping for turkey and stuffing? ►►SLO Caloca reported that Tujunga's year-to-date "Part 1" (meaning "serious") Crimes" were just 213—compared with 270 last year! That's 57 FEWER Tujunga families dealing with a nasty loss in their lives! The biggest drop was TEN LOWER in grand theft auto (GTA), a nice surprise since winter causes walkabout people to seek a warm hideaway or fast ride someplace. And that's the end of any valuables you might leave inside! ►►SLO Godoy said his Part 1 Crimes are now 358, which is DOWN by 20 from 378! However, his area's GTAs shot from one up to TEN, about evenly split between LVT and Sunland. Most often, these "Foothill taxis" are quickly recovered and fingerprinted, sometimes linking perps with past crimes. Local GTAs are mostly opportunistic, when doors have been left unlocked. ►►Homeless MESS at K-Mart is growing in spite of many coordinated efforts by City agencies. A "Care-Plus" visit—a very full clean-up—was scheduled for this spot. BUT law allows two extensions after signage notification. One was for cold weather and another for rain. Even so, the area gets a light clean-up weekly. (Turn-down service and chocolates on pillows are now discontinued.) Home Depot/Kmart company is highly supportive and cleans up junk tossed onto their side of the fence. Our officers routinely contact homeless, get to know them and write down their info. ► Our homeless are now mostly from outside S-T. Patrick and a few others are exceptions. They say they're safer here from other homeless criminals. And they get free food. Glendale has totally different laws and can remove transients. Here in LA, removal equals "kidnapping." ►►►► Burglary Detective Arvin Buenaventura works residential and commercial cases. He's on his third tour at Foothill Div and loves our area. He says thieves' method of operation (MO), seen in Seven Hills, Encino and elsewhere, is to enter a back yard, smash windows into the dwelling, steal valuables, then leave through the front. A Chilean gang was caught by LAPD Metro, a special tactics unit that meets weekly with Foothill. Metro's tactics include following suspects to track their movements and learn their habits, haunts, family and associates. Now thieves' ethnicities are more random, but their MO helps ID them. They place cameras in bushes to watch homes. They use easily available wi-fi jammers. They drive rental vehicles, some shady and rented with phony ID. The company Turo Rentals enables third-party rentals from private people, so records from them are spotty and suspect. Mostly, these thieves are not armed. Owning large dogs is a big help but, elsewhere, guard dogs have been killed. Shooting an intruder will earn the defending resident high scrutiny or worse from the DA. Note that most recovered street guns came from home robberies of unsecured firearms. Most burgled homes are empty, but LAPD responds to at-home burglaries ASAP! Most video cams are too fuzzy, placed too high or too far, and can't provide facial features or even ethnicity. Officers advise against approaching cars that are loitering. It's dangerous because you may be approaching an armed felon who has evil intentions. SLO Godoy worked in undercover narcotics and says their biggest reason for blown-up surveillance ops was Good Samaritans knocking on their window to inquire! At our own previous residence, I accidentally busted an FBI agent snooping on guys down the street. One resident asked about a specific S-T address and officers corroborated it as a drug house, populated by squatters—that's had search warrants. Even though the situation was known, no one called LAPD for months! Too often, people won’t testify, fail to report what their video captures. Owners are trying to evict, but the new "residents" are fighting the process and have CA "Squatters Rights" law on their side. Because it's VERY easy to switch utilities, one squatter had all the utilities switched to her name. It is a Big Help to us that most officers like working our Foothill area! Plenty of businesses allow officers to take lunch in their parking lot or use a restroom. Maybe your cordial greeting will encourage officers to try even harder! In decades past, one LAPD car HAD TO stay on "The Rock"—S-T. No longer! Thanks to understaffing, they must always distribute cars per demand. LAPD has NO STAFF for a local police office, but now you can report most matters online (see below). Worse, people often wait for the day an officer is in that local office, further delaying the report.   For greater safety, keep in touch with your neighbors, know them. Foothill Div has a jail that can, when necessary, hold up to 10 people. The station is closed on between 11 pm and 7 am. Detective Buenaventura said that, in 1996, LAPD was nearing 10,000 officers. Now sworn officers number less than 9,000. And how much has LO grown in 29 years? ►►►► RICARDO FLORES, Sr. Field Deputy CD7, said that CD7 gets pointless calls about crimes—which SHOULD all go to LAPD! And when he does investigate, far too often the reports are grossly wrong. The new Verdugo pool is very economical to use. CD7 seeks LOCAL people to train as lifeguards. EVERYTHING inside is new. On 5 December, come out to North Valley City Hall's tree lighting event! When you use the new MyLA311 app, you may find flaws. Send them to [email protected]. His office is in direct touch with the app-maker and can get things changed once they're studied and verified as faulty. ☼ PLEASE SAVE THESE CONTACTS!!! ☼ Call 911 for any emergency or crime in progress. ► LAPD NON-emergency: 1-877-ASK-LAPD        ► To File LAPD Report Online: https://www.lapdonline.org/file-a-police-report/ ► TUJUNGA Senior Lead Officer:  Gloria Caloca: [email protected] ► Sunland-LVT SLO:  Wil Godoy: [email protected] ► SLO for HOMELESS Issues:  Ofcr. Eric Herrera: [email protected] ► TRAFFIC:  Ofcr. Sal Venegas: [email protected] ► Volunteer to Help Foothill LAPD: Ofcr. Milton Ramírez: [email protected]