Slaying Fuels Neighbors’ War Against Pushers

Residents of the Sylmar neighborhood where a Los Angeles police officer was shot to death Monday night, many of whom have been campaigning against drug trafficking for a year, say they are more determined than ever to rid the area of drug pushers.

“It’s getting scarier all the time,” said David Moore, who has lived in the area seven years. “But this shooting makes it even more important for us to work even harder to push the dealers out.”

Police say the several blocks surrounding the Astoria Gardens low-income housing project, one block south of Foothill Boulevard, have become the central drug-trading point in Sylmar, with more than 30 drug-related arrests made there since the start of the year.

Residents at Astoria Gardens began organizing Neighborhood Watch groups last summer, and, at a nearby condominium complex, residents in April formed their own nightly patrols to keep drug dealers and prostitutes off their property. Just last week, area residents met with a police official and City Councilman Ernani Bernardi to discuss crime problems.

Indication of Need

On Tuesday, some said they hoped that the killing of Officer James H. Pagliotti, 28, in a gun battle with two teen-agers allegedly involved in a drug deal, would finally convince authorities that more attention has to be given to their community.

“It’s awful it had to happen, but it’s a good thing in one way because perhaps the police will really clamp down now,” said Vivian Osborne, manager of Astoria Oaks, an apartment project next to Astoria Gardens.

“Now you know what we were so upset about at the meeting,” a woman told a reporter. The same woman told Bernardi last week that her flower garden was destroyed after she reported drug activity.

Other residents at the meeting said a car was demolished by a pipe bomb after a man confronted a cocaine dealer. Others noted that electronic gates around some apartments have been repeatedly vandalized.

“It’s a war out there,” Bernardi said Tuesday. “Now, more than ever, residents need to get involved in stopping this drug dealing and burglaries and everything else that goes on out there.”

Bernardi has alloted $70,000 from his office budget so that a six-officer drug task force of the police, funded since March with $245,000 from the City Council, can continue to watch the area through summer.

At Dronfield Villas, a 72-unit condominium complex less than a block from where Pagliotti was killed, residents already conduct their own security patrols each night, walking the grounds in pairs in half-hour shifts.

“What happened Monday night isn’t anything new,” said Ray Rochelle, president of the Dronfield Villas Homeowners Assn. “It’s just, in this case, they didn’t miss.”

Days earlier, he and others described how a suspected drug dealer fired a gun at another man and almost struck two children at their complex.

On Tuesday night, while their parents talked about the killing, children played on the spot where Pagliotti was gunned down.

Rochelle said the group intends to continue patrolling, although “it’s going to mean some of us will have to put our necks on the line.”

Meeting Tonight

Ana Alvarez, manager of Astoria Gardens, predicted a large turnout for a meeting with police and Bernardi scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight. The meeting was set last Wednesday to follow up on issues discussed then, but the location was changed to Sylmar High School to accommodate the larger crowd expected because of the killing.

“We want people to come because it’s a proven fact that a large group can do more than one person,” Alvarez said.

But some said they are afraid to get involved because of the possibility that drug dealers will retaliate. “I just go to church and pray the dealers will go away,” said a woman who has lived in Astoria Gardens six years. “It’s safer.”