Bureau Chief Willie L. Pannell, Captain James Miller - engaging the community
September 16th

The Operations-South Bureau commanding officer, Deputy Chief Willie Pannell, and Captain James Miller, commanding officer at 77th Street Division, continue to reach out to the community, explaining what's being done to address the Division's high crime rate, and asking the residents to help.

They were front and center Saturday morning when community leaders, 77th Street C-PAB members and community policing activists came together at the Van Meter Center on 76th Street Saturday, to share current programs and discuss future plans.

Captain Miller was joined by Officer Ted McHenry, the 77th Street Division Community Relations Officer (CRO) and his new adjutant PSR Lisa Flanorie, formerly of LAPD's Communications Department (911, etc.).

77th Street Division holds the dubious distinction of having suffered 83 homicides year to date, (as of September 14th), which Chief Pannell says is a nearly a 100% rise over last year.

Among the next direct attempts to involve the community will be the Annual 77th Street Division "Open House and Health Fair" on Saturday, September 21st, and more local "STOP THE KILLIN' campaign" caravans:

Chief Pannell, a 33 year LAPD veteran, has only recently acquired command at South Bureau, which includes four LAPD Divisions, Southeast, Southwest, 77th Street and Harbor Divisions. But he's no stranger to the area. He lives there, and has worked in his hometown Bureau before.

In fact, in the 90's he had just taken over command of one of these Divisions the day the Rodney King verdicts were announced.

Chief Pannell has hit the ground running, reaching out to the community and calling meetings with activists, church groups, minister associations and members of the school system. He's also looking for support from the local City Councilmembers, in this case Councilwoman Jan Perry of CD 9.

He points out that once a young person has a criminal record, it's hard to get it removed, and so many youngsters enter "the system" and can't extricate themselves. There's also a very high illiteracy rate locally. As a result, the community ends up with a lot of local kids who are basically unemployable.

They are growing up predisposed to falling into the gang culture.

Chief Pannell believes better parenting, assistance from the community, an emphasis on education and job training are all vital to the long term solution to lowering the South Bureau crime statistics, and that these are areas where a lot of improvement could be made.

He also sees a need for a local Court House in the community, where judges will become much more familiar with the problems in South Bureau, and much more likely to understand the community.

Pannell encourages the residents to take care of their own properties as a sign of respect and pride in the neighborhoods, and wants to have Block Clubs and Neighborhood Watch groups offer assistance to locals who may need a hand doing this.

Gang truces, which had been established in the past, had worked for a short while but eventually failed, partly because promises made during the peace-making process had not been kept. For example, gang leaders had been told there would be jobs available, but were not offered any training prior to applying for them. As a result, many were deemed to be "unemployable" and were turned away.

Captain Miller agrees with the "it takes a village" approach espoused by Chief Pannell, and hopes the community will overcome two great hurdles to communal progress, namely the proclivity to say (a) "deal with my issue," and (b) "not in my back yard."

He and Chief Pannell both want the community to take advantage of the Division's SLOs, who can play a major role setting up even more more Block Clubs and Neighborhood Watch groups.

One C-PAB member suggested a telephone tree be established. He envisions the community descending on a homicide site within an hour of the occurrence, and believes this will show gang members how fed up the residents are, and how devoted the community is to public safety.

To be sure, there's no easy short term solution here, and many ingredients will eventually need to come to bear. But there's no doubt that the dedicated duo of Deputy Chief Pannell and Captain Miller are going to leave no stone unturned in their quest to make 77th Street Division much safer, and a better place to live.