Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Community Relations Sergeant Cody Signater remembers the Halloween eve of 2013, all too well. The veteran Sheriff’s deputy had been assigned to Community Relations Director a few months earlier, in March 2013. Remembering the surprising, destructive action by boisterous teenagers during the evening of October 31, 2013, he considers it a “learning experience”.
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Setting up command post at Frank Parent school
“During the Halloween night of 2013, there was a large influx of older juveniles, from areas outside of Ladera. Many of them ended up compromising the safety of our local residents,” Sergeant Signater remembered.
The problem, he explained, was that around a 1000 children and other minors were dropped off by their parents near the Frank Parent School parking lot on 64th street last year. When many parents were late in picking up their children, or did not show up at all, the kids made their way to Slauson Avenue, to try to get home by bus. Unfortunately, the buses had stopped running at 9 o’clock.
“We were getting multiple calls about problems, and were surprised to find up to 4,000 kids running around the Ladera Heights-Slauson area in the evening, without private or public transportation to get home,” Sergeant Signater said.
“Kids got restless and irritated without a way out of the area. Cars and homes had eggs tossed at them in the area bordered by Centinela Avenue on the south, Slauson avenue on the north, Crenshaw boulevard on the east, and Buckingham Parkway on the west. There were even attempts to TP (toiled paper) homes,” Sergeant Signater explained. “We called in the Highway Patrol to join us in mitigating the situation.”
He was quick to analyze the events afterwards and take steps to assure it would not happen again this year. “My Community Relations Team took a lot of time to plan for this year’s Halloween festivities. We created a coalition of
five neighboring police agencies, including the Los Angeles Highway Patrol, Inglewood, Culver City, Los Angeles, and our Sheriff’s Department.”
Volunteers from the Ladera Center and Marina del Rey reserve deputies community provided additional logistics and assistance.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) cooperated by supplying two large articulated buses. “We had the two buses on stand-by at Slauson Avenue, until each was radio dispatched by a Sheriff’s deputy,” the Sheriff’s sergeant explained. “When kids started gathering at Slauson Avenue to find transportation home, we coordinated the loading of 200 at a time onto each bus. They were driven to designated drop-off locations, further east on Slauson.”
The local Ralphs, CVS, 99 Cent Store, and Smart & Final all agreed to pull all eggs off of their shelves at 5pm that day. The stores apparently knew, from experience, that a majority of the eggs would have been stolen, if not removed prior to that evening.
Sheriff’s social media specialist, Sergeant Amore Smith, monitored various sites and could see the chatter about Halloween planning and plotting mischief building on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other sites. Many of the remarks are unprintable about “messing around” in Ladera and surrounding areas.
Later, chatter about the bolstered police presence quickly spread on the same social media sites. A sample of the milder comments: “Broh, it’s like 50 million cops in Ladera … So I’m at Ladera and there’s a police campsite and about 200 cops. I’m not ____ with this … Will not be going to Ladera this year – cops are camped out at Parent w at least 20 cars blocked off streets and the fire department … Cops gonna be on it …”
The problem, he explained, was that around a 1000 children and other minors were dropped off by their parents near the Frank Parent School parking lot on 64th street last year. When many parents were late in picking up their children, or did not show up at all, the kids made their way to Slauson Avenue, to try to get home by bus. Unfortunately, the buses had stopped running at 9 o’clock.
“We were getting multiple calls about problems, and were surprised to find up to 4,000 kids running around the Ladera Heights-Slauson area in the evening, without private or public transportation to get home,” Sergeant Signater said.
“Kids got restless and irritated without a way out of the area. Cars and homes had eggs tossed at them in the area bordered by Centinela Avenue on the south, Slauson avenue on the north, Crenshaw boulevard on the east, and Buckingham Parkway on the west. There were even attempts to TP (toiled paper) homes,” Sergeant Signater explained. “We called in the Highway Patrol to join us in mitigating the situation.”
He was quick to analyze the events afterwards and take steps to assure it would not happen again this year. “My Community Relations Team took a lot of time to plan for this year’s Halloween festivities. We created a coalition of
five neighboring police agencies, including the Los Angeles Highway Patrol, Inglewood, Culver City, Los Angeles, and our Sheriff’s Department.”
Volunteers from the Ladera Center and Marina del Rey reserve deputies community provided additional logistics and assistance.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) cooperated by supplying two large articulated buses. “We had the two buses on stand-by at Slauson Avenue, until each was radio dispatched by a Sheriff’s deputy,” the Sheriff’s sergeant explained. “When kids started gathering at Slauson Avenue to find transportation home, we coordinated the loading of 200 at a time onto each bus. They were driven to designated drop-off locations, further east on Slauson.”
The local Ralphs, CVS, 99 Cent Store, and Smart & Final all agreed to pull all eggs off of their shelves at 5pm that day. The stores apparently knew, from experience, that a majority of the eggs would have been stolen, if not removed prior to that evening.
Sheriff’s social media specialist, Sergeant Amore Smith, monitored various sites and could see the chatter about Halloween planning and plotting mischief building on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other sites. Many of the remarks are unprintable about “messing around” in Ladera and surrounding areas.
Later, chatter about the bolstered police presence quickly spread on the same social media sites. A sample of the milder comments: “Broh, it’s like 50 million cops in Ladera … So I’m at Ladera and there’s a police campsite and about 200 cops. I’m not ____ with this … Will not be going to Ladera this year – cops are camped out at Parent w at least 20 cars blocked off streets and the fire department … Cops gonna be on it …”
“My first option was a coordinated effort and lock down with no one in or out,” Sergeant Signater explained.
His meetings and detailed planning with the coalition of five neighboring police agencies included a coordinated slow rolling of police vehicles down many of the Ladera streets at the same time, away from 64th Street and toward Slauson Avenue. This saturated, highly visible police presence, encouraged groups of minors to end up on Slauson, where the large buses could get them close to their homes further east.
Around 8 pm, every street perpendicular to 64th Street reportedly had a coordinated sweep by patrol cars with flashing lights in a grid pattern. They slowly rolled down neighboring streets from 64th street toward Slauson. Groups of youngsters could not turn around and walk back. The large sweep was repeated, until the neighborhood streets were clear.
“This effectively shut down any vehicle traffic from Slauson down into Ladera. Anyone receiving or getting ride had to get to Slauson,” the sergeant noted.
A similar, large visible presence of Sheriff’s units also covered and slowly rolled through Angeles Vista Boulevard in View Park and surrounding areas through the evening.
There were “Eyes in the Sky” from Ladera, View Park, West Hollywood, Athens, to Hancock Park.
“Everything worked out fine,” Sergeant Signater reported. “The operation ended at 12 midnight without incident. Over 1000 people were peacefully controlled and directed to the waiting articulated buses to take them back to their neighborhoods.”
The only exception was the explosion from an M-80 firecracker, “equal to nearly half a stick of dynamite” on Halm Avenue and 64th street, near the Frank Parent school. The firecracker’s repercussion set off the driver’s and passenger’s side air bags in a car, occupied by a person waiting for her trick or treating children to return. She was not injured.
Tracie Tabor Lyons, President of the Ladera Heights Civic Association, commented, “The Los Angeles Sheriff Department did a fabulous job insuring that the residents of Ladera Heights had a safe and sane Halloween. By developing a strategy that allowed children to enjoy the fun of door-to-door trick or treating, while discouraging inappropriate behavior by teens outside of the neighborhood, everyone had an enjoyable holiday. Kudos to Sergeant Cody Signater and his team!”
His meetings and detailed planning with the coalition of five neighboring police agencies included a coordinated slow rolling of police vehicles down many of the Ladera streets at the same time, away from 64th Street and toward Slauson Avenue. This saturated, highly visible police presence, encouraged groups of minors to end up on Slauson, where the large buses could get them close to their homes further east.
Around 8 pm, every street perpendicular to 64th Street reportedly had a coordinated sweep by patrol cars with flashing lights in a grid pattern. They slowly rolled down neighboring streets from 64th street toward Slauson. Groups of youngsters could not turn around and walk back. The large sweep was repeated, until the neighborhood streets were clear.
“This effectively shut down any vehicle traffic from Slauson down into Ladera. Anyone receiving or getting ride had to get to Slauson,” the sergeant noted.
A similar, large visible presence of Sheriff’s units also covered and slowly rolled through Angeles Vista Boulevard in View Park and surrounding areas through the evening.
There were “Eyes in the Sky” from Ladera, View Park, West Hollywood, Athens, to Hancock Park.
“Everything worked out fine,” Sergeant Signater reported. “The operation ended at 12 midnight without incident. Over 1000 people were peacefully controlled and directed to the waiting articulated buses to take them back to their neighborhoods.”
The only exception was the explosion from an M-80 firecracker, “equal to nearly half a stick of dynamite” on Halm Avenue and 64th street, near the Frank Parent school. The firecracker’s repercussion set off the driver’s and passenger’s side air bags in a car, occupied by a person waiting for her trick or treating children to return. She was not injured.
Tracie Tabor Lyons, President of the Ladera Heights Civic Association, commented, “The Los Angeles Sheriff Department did a fabulous job insuring that the residents of Ladera Heights had a safe and sane Halloween. By developing a strategy that allowed children to enjoy the fun of door-to-door trick or treating, while discouraging inappropriate behavior by teens outside of the neighborhood, everyone had an enjoyable holiday. Kudos to Sergeant Cody Signater and his team!”