These are disturbing times in my neighborhood of Venice. Strange behavior and violent crime are nothing new here, where a population of locals, tourists and transients mingle in this urban beach environment. However, lately things have been stranger than usual.
Last month, a woman who must have been crazy led the California Highway Patrol on a chase that ended around the corner when she drove her BMW SUV to the west end of Washington Boulevard and crossed the beach parking lot in Venice. Dock, before plowing through the sand towards the waves. She jumped out of the car, abandoned a Boston terrier and tried to swim away before being pulled from the water by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department boat. The misadventure was captured by multiple cameras. Miraculously, no one was injured.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
On Saturday night, a half-mile away, a man who has been described as a 41-year-old self-employed chef allegedly livestreamed himself firing bullets from the roof of his apartment building, the Pearl in Marina del Rey. Terrified neighbors I have it on video. Again, miraculously, no one was hurt.
On April 6, two blocks from my house, two women were brutally attacked and sexually assaulted in the picturesque canals of Venice by a man who hit their heads from behind. A woman has spoken publicly about his assault from her hospital bed; The second woman, as of now unidentified, remains hospitalized.
The police have not yet said whether any of the many security cameras in the surrounding area recorded the attacks, which took place between 10:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., I assume they did. But security camera footage was instrumental in the suspect's arrest in San Diego days later.
More than one home camera showed a man dressed in light-colored clothing walking near or along canals at the time of the attacks. Those images informed the painstaking investigation of a Venice restaurateur who is frequently called upon by police to help identify criminals. Darrell Preston has helped police solve at least one rape and several shootings and stabbings.
Preston is operations manager for the restaurant group that includes Baja Cantina and Venice Whaler. She frequently reviews footage from the more than 50 security cameras owned by businesses in Washington Square, the tourist stretch of Washington Boulevard between Pacific Avenue and the pier. They record 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
After the attacks on the Venice canals, he spent many hours trying to find images that could be of the attacker. He was able to track a man between 6:15 p.m., when he was first seen harassing a young woman waiting to cross the street at Washington and Pacific, and 10:19 p.m., when footage shows him approaching one of the employees. of Preston, who was on the sidewalk outside Baja Cantina talking to his mother on the phone.
The same person, at 8:20 pm, was captured on images from inside Baja Cantina, where he entered a warehouse and came out with a bottle of whiskey. Before that, the man could be seen in Whaler's footage, walking in, ordering food (nachos, as it turns out) and walking to the bathroom. He left without paying for his meal.
Like many bars, the Whaler uses a technology called PatronScan to make sure IDs are valid, especially on weekends when things can get crazy. When he entered the Whaler, a camera caught him handing his Nevada ID to the host, who swiped it. Bingo.
At a news conference Monday, Los Angeles County Dist. Lawyer. George Gascon identified the suspect as 29-year-old Anthony Francisco Jones. He has been charged with forcible rape, sodomy, mayhem, torture and attempted murder.
“We are going to make sure that justice is done,” Gascón said. “These are probably some of the most egregious sexual assaults I've ever seen.” If he is convicted, Jones could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Dominic Choi, acting chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said Jones had no apparent criminal record in California and a couple of minor incidents elsewhere. But Preston told me, “No one believes this is his first felony.”
“The real success is how quickly the community came together and responded when we needed something,” said LAPD Det. Brent Hopkins. “The residents and business owners are the real heroes here who managed to solve this crime.”
No one deserves more credit than Preston. “I'm still finding evidence,” he said Monday.
I've always had mixed feelings about the ubiquity of security cameras that record virtually all of our public moments.
Homeowners whose Ring police camera videos proliferate on sites like NextDoor are only showing us what they would know even without the video: someone tried to break in, or someone managed to break in. And now that? I guess the posted videos warn neighbors, but we don't often hear about these videos solving crimes. Instead, cameras can seem less like useful security and more like unnecessary surveillance.
But after what this neighborhood went through in the last month, I'm so grateful for technology. Without it, an alleged brutal rapist would not be in custody.
