The Pico-Union Barricades
by Mike Burbano

The topic for which I chose my research paper is to discuss a small neighborhood just south of downtown Los Angeles, better known as Pico Union. The boundaries of Pico Union in which my topic is referring to is within the area south of 8th street, east of S. Vermont , north of W. Pico and west of S. Alvarado My main reason for choosing this neighborhood is for the fact that Pico Union is known for being an area in which drug pushing has been and still is a great problem of immense proportion. This fact is not a secret to the local residents nor to its local police department. In my research paper I am going to discuss an action that the police department has taken in order to try to reduce the illegal drug trafficking within the area. The police department believes by blocking off several streets with concrete barricades that are known to have heavy drug sales will help them with dealing with a problem that they let get out of hand in the first place. I hope that this latest action of barricading these streets is not a last attempt in solving this problem. Driving through this area makes it plain to see that the neighborhood and it residents are of the lower income status. You can easily find a homeless person and liquor store at every corner and if your patient enough you can witness a drug transaction take place right before you. Another obvious observation that can be easily noticed are its residents nationality. Most of the local businesses have their advertisement in Spanish writing, most of the individuals traveling on foot are of Hispanic descent as well as of African American descent. The condition of the streets are not like the clean and well lite streets of Glendale or of Pasedena, the streets here are extremely filthy, often heavily polluted with trash , and the walls throughout the neighborhood are filled with graffiti. If you have ever experienced walking through these streets day or night you can not help but to look over your shoulder continuously, always keeping an eye on the person walking beside you. I¹m pretty sure because of the obvious fact that the community is known to be in a lower income bracket, that the city of Los Angeles allowed the area of Pico Union to be overcome with the overwhelming problem of illegal narcotics distribution. On several occasions when I had traveled to Pico Union to witness the actual blockaded streets, only on a few isolated instances I witness drugs being purchased, though it did not take place where the barricades were placed. I for one am not a stranger to this neighborhood because I myself use to come down here before the barriers were up to look for what is so often demanded in this area. Just from my recent trips into the Pico Union District I have observed a positive change in comparison to how the area use to be, yes there still are drug pushers around and a few addicts staggering across the street, but long ago when I use to visit this area (1988) it was a shopping frenzy. What I mean by that is that there was a drug pusher around almost every corner, not only one or two ,but four or five dealers at a time running up to your car, elbowing at each other as they ran to your window to display the goods. Just from visiting the neighborhood two or three times a week I can honestly say that I have indeed witnessed a change that has taken place in this community. I believe the credit of this evident change does not completely have to go to the barricades but to the police presence as well. On one particular occasion I was standing in front of an apartment complex on the 1000 block of Grandview Street trying to approach a resident so that I could conduct one of my interviews but as I was standing there with a friend, a police car pulled up on top of the side walk and a one of the officers yelled at us to ³get on the fucking ground with your hands behind your head². Not being a stranger to these demands I obeyed them without hesitation, as I laid there I waited for the officer to give me the opportunity to explain what my reasons were for being in this neighborhood. When I finally explained my reason , over and over again, and when the officers finally believed me after a thorough search for narcotics he allowed us to go. I was relieved that the incident was over without any type of altercation but I was disappointed that the officers insisted that I must leave the premises at once and not return. Knowing that his request was pure nonsense, I obeyed them again without hesitation because I am aware of the possible consequences for disobeying an asshole, excuse me a police officer. Along with the hopes that the barricades will not only reduce the drug trafficking problems, comes the hope that crime throughout the entire neighborhood will reduce drastically. Signs stating that residents only can pass beyond the barricades will only give police officers another reason to stop for what they translate as being ³suspicious individuals². The phrase suspicious individuals causes me to wonder what exactly does that mean. Is it just another excuse that an officer has for making you lay on the ground or to make you kneel on the floor. How does a police officer distinguish a suspicious individual from a resident trying to get home from work. I will later discuss in my paper through several interviews with the residents of the Pico Union community if in fact the residents themselves have seen any type of change within the area, being either a positive or a negative one. And I will also discuss information I have discovered from within the ³Los Angeles Police Department Arrests By Reporting Districts² so that we can compare arrests concerning narcotics, adult felony and misdemeanor arrests from before and after the barricades were placed by the Los Angeles Police Department. Allow me to focus my discussion on only two of the twelve interviews that I conducted with actual residents living within the community of Pico Union. My main reason for choosing these two specific interviews was because they involved two different families that have a completely different outlook about the concrete barricades surrounding their community. Let us start with the Gonzalez family, because of the detailed information concerning the lifestyle and family history of the Gonzalez family I was asked to change the true names of the actual residents. The members of the Gonzalez family in total are three, Maria (43) is the mother of two sons, Robert (19) and Jose (22), and all three reside in a small single apartment which is located right behind a barricade near the intersection of 12th Street and Hoover Street. Maria first moved into the neighborhood with her late husband, father to both Jose and Robert in 1974. She remembers the community being completely different than to what it is today, Maria was quick to say that ³even white people use to live down here². Her husband quickly found a job at a milk factory in a neighboring city. Recently married Maria was the type of wife that did what ever her husband demanded of her. So when the day came that she found a large sandwich baggy full of cocaine under their bed, Maria did not say a word, she turned the other cheek when she walked into her living room one day to find her husband sniffing cocaine on the coffee table. Not long after that day her husband lost his job for some unknown reason, and that is when Maria says her life went upside down. Maria blames herself for allowing her husband the freedom of using the drug inside of their home without worrying about what she thought or said. She felt like she had no choice, she asked herself, what could she do? where could she go? and who would financially raise her child? The drug use continued for quite a while, her husband was in and out of jail for years. Know with two children her husband finally stopped using cocaine, not by choice or by Marias counseling, he overdosed and passed away. Maria and her children still reside in the same apartment building, but know she¹s trying to take control of her life, living in a community that seems to never run out of the drug that took over her husbands life. She acknowledges the neighborhood drug problem as the ³neighborhood disease², a disease that has just begun to try to take her oldest son away as well. Maria has found on a few occasions some crack cocaine that her son has tried to hide from her in their home. She welcomed the increased police presence after the barricades were placed in October of 1989. Her attitude towards the police still remains the same, even after her son Jose was arrested for distribution of an illegal substance. Maria stated ³ I have no reason to fear the police, I don¹t break any laws. The only reason for the people that you spoke to are afraid is because they are breaking the laws². She was referring to the other residents of the area that I had spoken to her about, that said they did not like the fact that the barriers were implemented in the area to begin with. Even though she knows the drugs, the crime, and the criminal element that comes with it are still lingering just outside her door, she claims that she has noticed a dramatic change for the better and will continue to support the police departments efforts. ³I still have one son who is in school and who is staying out of trouble, and I wont let any drug take him away from me². I found Maria as being a very courageous woman, inspite of all the heartbreak that she had gone through she still finds a way of surviving, making sure that eventhough they live where they do that they do not fall victim to what so many in the community have fallen to. My second interview involves a single black African American male who also resides within the area of Pico Union. Unlike the previous family, Dan lives on a street that was once barricaded but has not been for quite some time now. This resident was also present before the barriers were placed in 1989. He remembers hearing gunshots every night, police sirens every other minute, people screaming on the street, memories he says he could do without. Dan was one of the few residents who stay clear of the drugs that inhabited the area. His means of employment required random drug testing, so this was another incentive for staying clean. One question I had asked him was if the police presence was the same as it was before compared to what it was like after the barriers went up. Dan was quick to state that he had to take the bus to and from work every day, so he had a pretty good idea of how much of a change if any had occurred. ³On the way home from the bus stop was always an experience², he recalled. I was always questioned about my business², it upset him that eventhough the police officers never found any type of narcotic on him they would still give him a hard time with threats of taking him in , or just handcuffing him for no reason at all. Another justifiable reason for dreading the walk from the bus stop to his apartment was that on several different occasions it would be the same police officers. What made me upset hearing this was that instead of trying to arrest the drug pusher or buyer they were here waisting their time with someone who obviously was clean and through identification lived within the area. Another remembrance that Dan has of how it use to be before the barricades were placed was the continuous flow of addicts driving through the streets looking for a good deal. It was obvious to him that most of the buyers that came to hunt down their drug of preference did not live in the area. ³A bunch of white and oriental folks in their nice Honda¹s and BMW¹s would drive around in circles around the block². This type of action would continue all night long, or until the sun would come up. He would laugh at the police attempts of trying to bust the dealers on the streets, ³there was just too many of them for two officers to handle². The police officers would arrest one or maybe two dealers while the other ten would just disappear and reappear when the coast was clear. Sometimes, according to Dan, the police would think that they could scare the dealers away by driving slowly down the street while shining their spotlight on whom ever would be on the street at the time. It was obvious that these meager attempts at stopping the problem wasn¹t going to stop anything, but what according to Dan that did make a change was the night after the barriers were placed. Yes the dealers still came out from the shadows that night feeling as if nothing had changed, but as soon as Grandview Street began to start its business up again, Dan recalls a swarm of police squads swarmed onto the scene. Police officers in full riot gear out numbered the dealers three to one, and hauled them all away in a police truck. After that night he clearly remembers it being different, of course by placing a couple of barricades on a street didn¹t solve the problem but there was a noticeable difference. Of course you could still find drug dealers selling their product on near by streets that were not blocked of but a positive change did occur in the area. Although he was still harassed once in a while, his feelings toward the officers were quite different from what they use to be. He understands that the officers were simply trying to keep the dealers from returning into that particular street, and he appreciated their effort. Though as quickly as the barricades and the police presence came that night, three years later they had just as quickly vanished and were focused on a near by street that was overcome with the same problem. This is what puzzles me, why would the police stop an affective action that was clearly working. Couldn¹t the city afford spending some of our tax payers money on building another barricade? According to Dan, Grandview is in business, maybe not as much as before but there are dealers still present at night. The streets are still being patrolled, not as much as it was during the barricading but it is obviously not as affective as it was before. According to the information within the Los Angeles Police Department Arrests By Reporting Districts, clearly states that crime was at its highest point. Arrests concerning narcotics on Grandview Street beginning on January 6th through October 1989, reveals on an average the police department registered about eighty-nine narcotics arrests, eighty-seven felony , and eighty-five misdemeanor arrests. It seems clear about the fact that not only has narcotics been an overwhelming problem within the area but crime as a hole has had its share also. In comparison within the same time period in the following year (1990) narcotic arrests dropped to about fifty-three, felony arrests dropped to about fifty-five a month, misdemeanor arrests dropped about thirty-seven a month. These numbers not only came to me as a wonderful suprise but to the residents that I had shared this information to as well. These statistics are not some kind of a secret at all, there has been other areas that have incorporated this tactic in trying to control their own seemingly uncontrollable problem with their drug infested community. From information that I have obtained from the police department, in February of 1990 a Los Angeles neighborhood called Newton has also restricted traffic within the community with their own concrete barricades. The area that the police had declared a ³Narcotics Enforcement Area² was approximately thirty square blocks. Other Los Angeles neighborhoods that had implemented similar tactics are Mar vista, and Devonshire. All of these neighborhoods have encountered the same type of results, if not more impressive as of those of Pico Union. The residents of Pico Union to whom I have spoken to, have and can play a major role in taking control of their streets. They must begin by overcoming the fear and isolation that I witnessed in so many of the residents in the community. The community of Pico Union must welcome the police efforts in trying to make this area safer. The residents must not only think of themselves but for the children who must try to ignore the pressures and temptations that this neighborhood brings to them. Another unexpected suprise was that the schools within the area reported that more children had attended school after the barricades were placed in the area. There were many residents that are concerned about what will happen to their neighborhood if the barriers were to ever come down. These barricades have played a major role in reducing crime within and around the area, to cancel this action will be a huge mistake. Society as a hole must not allow this to happen, we must not give up on this community and the many others that face the same type of dilemma. Not only are the residents of this community purchasing the drugs that are for sale in the area but your children may also be as well. If we help these communities with their fight in trying to wipe out drugs in their neighborhood, we may be also saving a child of someone we know. THE PICO UNION BARRICADES BY MIKE BURBANO