A Week in Watts Page #3

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and get the feelings of two people

and then tell the whole country

that that's how this community feels.

So, I think the media has a responsibility

to learn the culture and the history

of the community

and the police department on both sides,

and then maybe help us make this change.

Listen up. This is how we're going to work

for Wednesday, March 9.

Jesse, you're light duty.

I got you down here.

Twenty-one is Will and Manny,

report to Johnny and Eric.

Is your partner here today? I hope so.

I'm actually in charge of the team

at Nickerson Gardens housing development.

It's myself and ten officers.

Johnny Coughlin is one of the officers.

Basically, our job is to...

supervise the officers in there

as they foster a relationship

with their community

being established within the development.

We currently work

the community safety partnership,

and it was created to go into

the housing developments

and bridge that gap

between the police and community.

The community, they're there every day,

seven days a week, 24 hours a day,

we just come in for

a certain amount of time

and do our police work

and then leave, so...

we're able to have that relationship,

and I think that makes a huge difference

in solving crime.

Over time, we've seen crime reduced

within the public housing developments.

But we haven't seen a crime displacement.

What we have seen is

the work that we've done saturated around

the public housing developments

has reduced crime

in the broader community.

What we try to have

our community understand...

it's not about you.

It's about the kids,

the mothers, the grandmothers

deserve to be able to go

in and out their door

and not be worried about being shot

or robbed or raped or kidnapped.

So them are the things

we really wanted to focus on

and through law enforcement,

we understand, we know that

they're supposed to serve and protect,

but we had issues over in the community

that we felt like that wasn't being done.

So we found a way to try to fix it.

You can smell that,

the stink smell of marijuana,

hitting me in the face right now.

I imagine that's probably coming from

that north parking lot

where all those individuals

were in the cars.

What's going on, brother?

You guys smoking? I can smell it.

You just get done smoking?

Someone did.

When you are on foot,

interacting with members of that community

whether they be gang members,

victims, witnesses,

just the residents,

employees that work there,

Um...

you really get to see the impact

of the crime and the gangs

and how they can

really take hold of a community.

I'm good with all the cops.

They ain't did nothing to me.

I've really been here all my life, though.

I been here 60 something years now.

Is that good enough for you?

- You live here a long time, sir?

- I used to.

- You don't stay here no more?

- I live in Vegas.

- Vegas?

- Yeah.

How long did you live here in Watts?

- Forty years.

- In Nickerson?

Nickerson, everywhere. I was born here.

- Were you here for the Watts riots?

- Yeah.

What's your perception of the police now

as you've grown up and gotten older?

I haven't been here.

Have you seen the police change at all?

- Honestly, you can say no.

- No.

- You haven't?

- No.

You don't see any change

in the LAPD coming up?

- You haven't seen anything get better?

- The sheriff, but not LAPD.

- Really? Okay.

- Yeah.

That's fair. I ain't mad at you.

Because the sheriff is going to like...

if you ain't got no knife, guns or...

they ain't going to mess with you.

They never cared about

a little bag of weed

or nothing like that, whatever.

This... I'm talking about

the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

That's when I left.

- You haven't had contact with the police?

- No.

- That's a good thing, right?

- Yeah.

It's good and it's bad, you know.

All right. All right, sir.

Because the youngsters, they do

more crazy stuff than we used to do.

- Yeah?

- We thought we was off the hook but...

What do you think the police should do

when the youngsters do crazy stuff?

I don't know, because we, like, as elders,

we couldn't do too damn much.

The kids got they own perspective

and then how they trip.

You know what I mean?

And then they don't listen.

- They don't treat people with respect?

- No. They don't listen, so I don't know.

I'm a grandfather. I ain't got to deal

with these youngsters. Know what I mean?

I get that. I totally understand that.

All right, sir. Well, have a good visit.

But y'all doing a good start,

you know, like mingling.

That's the only way you

get an understanding.

Good. At least

we're doing something right.

- All right.

- All right, man. Thank you, sir.

All right.

We're in a really

tough spot as far as being able to

effectively communicate with

various different age groups

in the community

because their perspective is different.

For instance,

Friday night there was kids playing here.

Officers were watching the cameras.

There's 20 individuals gambling

under the easement over here,

and there was a bunch of kids

playing on the playground.

So they're gambling, smoking marijuana,

drinking in proximity to kids at a park.

Is that a huge deal? No, but if you're

trying to affect change in the community

and affect what kids are learning,

then that has to be addressed.

Sixteen through 30-year-olds,

they don't think it's a big deal.

They think, I'm just smoking weed,

gambling and drinking

a little bit of wine or beer.

They don't understand the pass down effect

that it's having on the community

because they grew up seeing that

so it doesn't shock their system.

So at what point...

Don't touch the gun.

You know not to touch the gun.

- That's a real gun?

- That's a real gun.

That's bullets.

- Boogers?

- Bullets.

Oh. See it?

No. Whoa.

- Are those bullets?

- Those are bullets.

- You don't touch those either, right?

- Because they for shooting people?

They can hurt people, yeah.

Only when you have to, though.

Only when we have to protect somebody.

Why?

Because someone else could get hurt.

Why do you need to shoot 'em?

If someone's trying to hurt someone

really bad, we might have to stop them.

- Oh, my God.

- I know.

Hopefully, it doesn't happen often

or never.

There was a statistic done.

I don't know if it was since

the inception of the cameras,

but the cameras have helped

or actually captured and solved

well over 500 crimes.

I mean, that's huge.

You're invested in crime

that's going on here,

but you're not investing in us,

the people that's in here.

The people are suffering.

On this video, two victims are

walking southbound on Success here.

As they cross the street,

three cars come up on them,

as a jeep, it's a white jeep,

passes them by.

Three suspects come out

and start shooting at two victims.

This video in the LPR was huge

in helping solving this case

because were quickly able to get

what car was used in this case.

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