Santa Ana’s City Council Members are finally reacting to the increasing violence and crime in our city – but their reaction is not what anyone might have expected. In a city where the Council Members have in the past led marches against violence and conducted town hall meetings to discuss the issue, our elected officials are now ducking and covering.
Consider what several of the Council Members told the O.C. Register after five shootings and three fatalities in the past month:
- The recent violence is an “anomaly and isn’t characteristic of Santa Ana,” Councilman David Benavides said. “Unfortunately, it’s a reality of human nature,” Benavides said. “But compared to big cities like Los Angeles and San Diego, our crime rates are minuscule by comparison when you look at population.”
- Councilman Sal Tinajero said that gang violence in Santa Ana has “significantly” dropped since the 1980s and 1990s, but he noted that “there is always room for improvement.” Specifically, Tinajero said that providing additional after-school programs would help keep kids off the streets and out of trouble, leading to a reduction in violence. “This is a wake-up call for leaders in this city to keep looking forward for more innovative ways to stop this kind of violence,“ Tinajero said. “We can’t just sit back and say everything’s OK.”
What the Council Members are not talking about is that crime has begun to spiral out of control in our city since they fired our last Police Chief, Paul Walters, who was at the time also acting as our City Manager. They had to pay Walters a large severance package as he was under contract. And they ended up hiring a new City Manager, David Cavazos, who cost us a small fortune. The new Police Chief, Carlos Rojas, has appeared overmatched since taking over for Walters on an interim basis. He was recently given the Police Chief job permanently. He might be regretting that now.
Crime is even climbing in North Santa Ana – where multiple homes in Floral Park and in the Park Santiago neighborhood have been victimiezed by burglars recently. The burglars have even resorted to stealing dogs from homes in Floral park and the residents are, as you might imagine, besides themselves. People who are moving into these neighborhoods are in shock as they thought they were moving to a “vibrant city” not one that is now under siege by a criminal element that the cops seem unable to counter.
And perhaps that is the real problem. The SAPD is woefully understaffed and morale there is at an all-time low. We already outsourced our Fire Department to the OC Fire Authority. Perhaps it is time to outsource our cops to the Orange County Sheriff. Doing so would allow for more cops to patrol our city. And the Sheriff’s Department is already here. The Sheriff’s office is in Downtown Santa Ana and her deputies already patrol the state, county and federal buildings in the Civic Center.
But the SAPD police union contributed a lot of money to Benavides and his fellow Council Members in 2012, including Councilwoman Michele Martinez’ disastrous Assembly campaign. So don’t expect this Council to actually look at any options that might make our city safer.
As long as Benavides has his twenty something weightlifter chick to protect him, he’s happy. That guy is a slug.
Maybe they want to blame it all on the 909’ers like everyone at Huntington Beach does…Right?
Pretty good theory. I would expect no less from this bunch.
When Roman Reyna is Mayor he will seek comprehensive solutions that will move Santana forward progressively together for the youth to be progressively involved in transparent comprehensive solutions.
Can’t wait for RR’s campaign speech.
“Accept i ain’t got no nothin’ but its really really imortantant to like to make Santa Ana more better”……….
“But the SAPD police union contributed a lot of money to Benavides and his fellow Council Members…”
So much so that it’s Broadway HQ served as Benavides campaign HQ in his catastrophic mayoral bid. ironically, after the loss when his Real Estate business failed and he lost his lease, he posted his address as the Police Union HQ before he got outed on Facebook. He quickly took a job in orange as an agent.
So the idea that he is in the unions pocket is not fantasy but fiction. but considering the murders outside his front door, maybe he needs to be friendly with the cops.
Must be all those marijuana shops pushing up the criminal element.
My neighbor is a deputy DA in Santa Ana. Had courthouse duty today.
He reports it was a BIG day for SA at the central courthouse:
Two SERIAL Killers who killed AT LEAST three Santa Ana women, ordered to stand trial.
Two women who kicked a patron to death in “Vibrant Downtown” had a pre-trial hearing.
EX-City Councilman Carlos Bustamante began his trial on GRAND THEFT, KIDNAPPING and RAPE.
That’s quite a day for our fair city. I wonder if we can expect the council and their normal cheerleaders to show up at the Telemundo rally Wednesday to face the realities that face this city. Instead, they’ll drag out a menu from Diego’s and talk about bike lanes and healthy living.
Here’s a tip for a better life: DUCK! Santa Anan’s are being killed at an alarming rate and NOBODY in city government wants to talk about it.
Imagine if the PAYAN X crowd got sprayed with bullets the way Benavides neighborhood does. You’d hear about it.
So here we go again:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gang-614928-police-woman.html
From today’s OCR:
Police: Woman wounded in Santa Ana gang-related shootout
It goes on to describe a gunfight, where in walkers were attacked in a drive by shooting. But, it doesn’t end there: the victims were packing heat to and began to return fire!
Oh, it just be an anomaly that there are gun battles on the street at 5:30 AM on a Tuesday.
Pablo is singing a different tune this AM:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-615495–.html
But at a City Council meeting this week, Councilman David Benavides called the shootings a “sobering reminder” that more needs to be done.
“Let’s continue to invest,” he said, “but let’s also make sure we’re working with the neighbors out there, working at coming up with solutions – supporting the after-school programs, mentoring programs, neighborhood cleanups; identifying some of these hotspot neighborhoods or neighborhood-improvement areas within the strategic plan so every year we move forward.”
WHAT A TOOL