MANY COMPTON RESIDENTS SAY THEY FEEL SAFER UNDER SHERIFF’S DEPT
By The Compton Bulletin
By many accounts, it’s a new day in Compton under the protection of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Carolyn Blake said she and her adult children ride their bikes down her street at ease, free of fear. Ten years ago when the Compton Police Department policed the streets, she said, that simply wasn’t possible.
“Before, we could go nowhere,” said Blake, who’s called Compton home since 1958. “We’ve come too far to turn back.”
Blake was among about 80 citizens who gathered recently in the stuffy, dirty gym at Gonzales Park to discuss the city’s plan to resurrect the local police department, which has been defunct for nearly a decade.
The town hall-style gathering was hosted by Citizens for a Greater Compton, a nonprofit headed up by Compton City Council critic William Kemp. It was the second such meeting held for citizens—by citizens—to discuss who should police Compton’s streets.
Although the July 17 meeting’s organizers—and much of the audience—are not in favor of a CPD comeback at this time, everyone was allowed microphone time.
Many who shared echoed a similar theme throughout the three-hour meeting: while crime is still a serious issue, a feeling of safety has blossomed in Compton, one that has in some ways restored freedom to a community that not so long ago was imprisoned by the terror ruling their neighborhoods at the hands of gangbangers and gun-toting criminals. And they aren’t about to lie down while, in their eyes, it’s taken away.
Kemp compared the state of the streets a decade ago to that of today.
“We have restaurants where we can sit outside and eat,” he said. “We couldn’t do that 10 years ago. I see people jogging in the morning and the evening. That didn’t used to happen. Our parks are filled with children. We almost don’t have drive-bys and home invasions,” anymore.
